The BTC (Big Throughput Camera) Mosaic Imager is now entering its second semester of use on the Blanco 4-m telescope, after a very successful first semester. The agreement between the BTC team (Tony Tyson and Gary Bernstein) covered the loan of the instrument for 1997 only. Recently we have arranged for the BTC loan to continue through 1998 semesters 1 and 2, following which time a clone of the NOAO Mosaic Imager (http://www.noao.edu/kpno/mosaic/) will be commissioned. The BTC WWW pages (http://www.ctio.noao.edu/instruments.html) or (http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~btc/tech.html) give a detailed description of the instrument and how to use it. Upgrades planned over the next few months include providing a Sun Ultra to speed data reduction. We also have on order three large interference filters with center wavelengths 5007Å, 6563Å and 6728Å.
Alistair Walker