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Summer Shutdown Activities on Kitt Peak (1Sep95)
(from KPNO, NOAO Newsletter No. 43, September 1995)

As the monsoon flow from the south (traditionally between the Fourth
of July and Labor Day) closes the domes on Kitt Peak, we are hard at
work on many large-scale engineering and maintenance projects that
cannot be done while we are in regular operation. Here are the major
improvement projects and some of the maintenance work that you should
look for when you next come to observe at KPNO:

ú    Mayall 4-m: The big news on the mountain is the installation of
the mirror cooling system. We will have the mechanical components in
place, characterized and under manual operation by the end of
shutdown; a semi- automatic control system will come later. The
declination brake and the hour angle dampening springs---both of which
have been causing numerous drive trips---will be repaired. New software
and diagnostics will be added to the R-C Spectrograph control. Annual
maintenance and necessary repairs will be carried out on the
Cassegrain guider, the Prime Focus guider, rotator, scan table and
filter wheel, and the Echelle and RC Spectrographs. A new UPS will
replace a decade-old RUPS, which could not be economically
refurbished; the new UPS will allow substantial energy savings.

ú    2.1-m: The Telescope Control System is being re-engineered to
permit operation by the astronomer. Beyond significant changes to the
Graphical User Interface (and some work on the underlying TCS
software), the most evident improvement will be to replace the IDT
with an ILS guide camera to ease the acquisition of guide stars, a
system which has been proved simple and effective for astronomers at
the 0.9-m. The primary mirror will be aluminized. The bellows in the
primary support system will be serviced and replaced as necessary. The
Cassegrain guider will be cleaned, lubricated and adjusted. Optical
surfaces in GoldCam will be recoated.

ú    0.9-m: The ancient LSI 11/44 for the FORTH TCP will be replaced
with an (equally venerable) 11/73 for better system reliability and
sparing.  The Cassegrain guider and filter wheel will be cleaned,
lubricated and adjusted.

ú    Coude Feed: Work is proceeding to understand why the telescope
does not point well in the eastern half of the sky. We now find that
the overall pointing is not what it once was; the underlying symptom
has the appearance of backlash.

ú    Burrell Schmidt: A new lead screw in the CCD focus mechanism will
be installed to improve focusing.

ú    CCD Dewars: All of the dewars will be sent to town to be cleaned
and evacuated. The CCDs will be flooded to improve ultraviolet
sensitivity and the overall quantuum efficiency will be evaluated.
Default detector gains will be set to optimize performance over a
range of astronomical requirements.

ú    Night-time Dorm 1: Carpets will be installed in all of the rooms.
The smoke alarms will be replaced with heat detectors so that an alarm
does not go off when one is taking a shower. Electric heaters will be
cleaned, lubricated and the grill work fastened down to minimize
vibration. Noisy fans in the bathrooms will be replaced.

Bruce Bohannan (for a cast of many)

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