Even though Argus is soon to be decommissioned, it will not lose its potential as a scientifically useful instrument. Because of its architecture, Argus is an interesting candidate for moving to another telescope under a long term loan arrangement. It is completely stand-alone and can be controlled by any PC through a single serial line. Its 32 meter fiber bundle will be removed intact from the telescope and would not be difficult to install in another location.
Though Argus is now used at prime focus of the 4-m Blanco telescope, an ideal new home would be at the R/C or Cassegrain focus of a 1 to 2 meter telescope with a scale of 20-50"/mm. Argus' weight of ~ 50 kg would not be excessive for such a location. A telescope like this will need a simple wide field corrector/field flattener, which could easily be installed at a modest cost if one does not already exist.
The bottom end of the fiber bundle requires a spectrograph with an 18mm slit. A bench spectrograph would be straightforward to construct if an appropriate spectrograph were not already available. Many of the parts for the Argus bench spectrograph could be reused.
There is no plan to move Argus to any other NOAO facility, or to support its use elsewhere beyond a pro forma loan arrangement. Anyone interested in possibly using Argus after it is retired should contact tingerson@noao.edu to discuss the technical feasibility of any proposal.
Tom Ingerson