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KPNO Leadership Speaks Out! (1Sep93)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 35, 1 September 1993)

Kitt Peak National Observatory has much to be proud of. Our telescopes
are among the most productive in the world; our small telescopes
provide unique capabilities and are competitive with larger facilities
elsewhere. Our instrumentation, including Hydra, our "stable" of CCDs,
and our infrared instruments SQIID, COB, IRIM, and CRSP, are
outstanding. We assist more visitors to achieve successful observing
runs than any other observatory in the US to yield an unrivaled level
of scientific productivity.

Nonetheless, KPNO must look to the future at a time when the Gemini
telescopes are the premier facilities available to the national
community. KPNO must take an active role in the development of
instrumentation for and support of the Gemini telescopes. We must
continually upgrade our present facilities and expand our programs to
meet the increasing and changing needs of the astronomical community.
We must continue to develop and make available to the community
state-of-the-art instrumentation which allows all astronomers to
compete effectively with those at other observatories.

Over the last months and years, the KPNO staff has begun to tackle many
of the issues critical to our future. The WIYN Telescope is nearing
completion, our instrumentation program, both optical and IR, has new
instruments underway that will greatly expand our capabilities. We have
already begun a queue scheduling program, we are now archiving data on
a limited basis, and we are resurrecting our remote observing
experiments, which started in the early 1980s, with the availability of
1990s technology. We are committed to a program to improve the imaging
quality of all Kitt Peak telescopes, with a goal to achieve images
limited only by the seeing of the site itself.

Queries, requests, comments, complaints, advice, and good luck wishes
can be addressed to any or all of us on any subject, or even simply to
the KPNO Directors' Office (or just to kpno@noao.edu). We will see that
your message reaches the right person.

Wish us luck!

George Jacoby, Todd Boroson, Caty Pilachowski

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