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WIYN Construction Slews to the Next Target (1Sep92)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 31, 1 September 1992)

Fall visitors to the mountain will note that construction of the WIYN
enclosure has proceeded at a rapid pace! In the late spring the
foundations and pier were poured, and in June the structural steel for
the base of the enclosure and the control building was erected. The
ring beam and structural steel for the moving portion of the enclosure
were installed in late July, and the insulating outer skin is scheduled
to be added in mid-August. During the remainder of the year, the
contractor will be installing mechanisms and finishing the interior.
Construction of the enclosure and control building should be complete
by early January.

L&F Industries in California is also making good progress on the
fabrication of the telescope mount. All the major steel weldments have
been released and are in various stages of fabrication.  Detailed
design work continues on a myriad of small parts including design of
the secondary and tertiary mirror cells and supports. Shop assembly of
the mount at L&F should be complete early next year. Following
acceptance tests, the telescope will be disassembled, shipped to Kitt
Peak, and installed in the WIYN enclosure during 1993.

Progress at NOAO on the primary mirror is reported in the article
below. Delivery of the secondary mirror blank from Schott is expected
imminently. The blank will be stress relieved, and pucks for the
support fixtures will be bonded to the glass, and then the mirror blank
will be shipped to Contraves USA for polishing and testing. The testing
will make use of NOAO's 100-inch Hindel sphere, which has already been
shipped to Contraves.

The tertiary mirror blank, also fabricated by Schott, has been
machined, with delivery expected in August. We will soon be soliciting
proposals for its polishing. In the next couple of months we expect to
finalize the design for the wide field corrector.

Design of the telescope control system is underway at the University of
Wisconsin, and a critical design review will be held in October. The
"Instrument Adaptor" is in the process of being designed. Over the next
few months NOAO will be developing detailed plans to move the Hydra
fiber positioner and the bench spectrograph from the 4-m to the WIYN
telescope during the summer of 1994.  Plans for the commissioning and
early operations phases of the telescope are being developed for
discussion with the WIYN Board of Directors.

Procedures for applying for observations from the WIYN telescope will,
of course, be announced in the Newsletter.

Matt Johns, Caty Pilachowski

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