There have been several changes in the mountain staff recently, all intended to maintain the high quality operation expected by users in the face of personnel changes within CTIO as a whole.
The La Serena Computer Applications Group had two vacancies resulting from staff leaving the Observatory. While one was filled by an outside hire, the other has now been filled by the transfer of Nelson Saavedra from the mountain to La Serena. Telescope operator Manuel Hernández has been selected to fill the resulting vacancy on the mountain, following an internal search. Manuel will be taking over Nelson's duties in support of data reduction and other computer related observer support activities. His counterpart on the other shift, Mauricio Navarrete, continues in his position.
In order to replace Manuel as a telescope operator, we have offered the position to Alberto Zuñiga, who has been working as the MACHO observer. Alberto has a long prior experience as a night assistant with ESO on La Silla. During the summer he will be getting trained on the 1.5-m and 4-m telescopes. Using an opportunity offered by Rae Stiening (2MASS) we will send Patricio Ugarte to the 2MASS northern site on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, in early February to get trained as an "expert observer" for the 2MASS telescope. On his return, Patricio will assist in the training and supervision of the observers for that project.
We are in the process of selecting candidates for telescope operators to provide services under contract to on-site experiments: one for MACHO, and two each for the USNO CCD astrograph, 2MASS, and the Yale 1-m.
During this summer, we have two students from the University of La Serena, Roger Leiton and Sergio Pizarro, as "fill-ins" for vacation leaves of regular telescope operators. Roger participated in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in 1996. We have a computer sciences student, David Walker, who is doing his práctica (a kind of professional apprenticeship) by constructing a catalog of the Schmidt telescope plates, somewhat like the one we have for the 4-m PF plates. One goal is for David to develop tools to permit others to extend these catalogs to other telescopes and to maintain them in the future.
Oscar Saá (osaa@noao.edu)