Magellan f/5 Planning and Status Andrew Szentgyorgyi Magellan SAC Meeting Pasadena/17 Mar 2012

Current f/5 Run f/5 Campaign in progress (Megacam tonight) 2012A run 10 Mar - 22 April Instruments are scientifically robust Demand is high Scheduling for 2012B, 2013, &c subject of discussion later

Status of Instrumentation MMIRS and Megacam meet optical/efficiency/performance specifications Mechanical systems – stable/spares on site Electrical systems – stable/spares on site Computers/network – stable but slight concern about spares (DOsip to comment?) Software – stability needs improvement

Support Personnel Vincent Suc (EE) continues to support startup/shutdown Vincent also continues to upgrade/maintain equipment between campaigns, supports upgrade campaigns Igor Chillingarian (SW Scientist) on Cambridge staff to develop MMIRS data reduction pipeline Igor is engaged in observing/debugging/observer support Igor functions as startup MMIRS operations John Roll, Maureen Conroy, Ann Matthews (SW Eng’s) maintain and upgrade software ASz and Brian McLeod continue to support observing on site Warren Brown now Director of Telescope Data Center Warren supervises Cambridge staff activities archiving & validating data Remote software maintenance from Cambridge is extremely effective

Support Personnel Planning Harvard plans to maintain status quo support level as long as it is required Magellan instrument specialists would like to become more engaged in and knowledgable about MMIRS and Megacam science operations Technical staff is becoming more skilled at mounting and demounting f/5 instrumentation CfA will continue dialogue about necessity of Vincent’s support – Vincent is expected to complete PhD in months – If Magellan & CfA feel this level of support is required, we must start a search for a successor in ~10 months

Achieving Software Stability To date, frequent upgrade, bug fixes, enhancements &c have compromised software stability Stability is improving Need to achieve level of stability where Magellan staff can do routine maintenance and operation Dave Osip’s criterion – it should possible for mountain staff to mount f/5 and start operations without CfA intervention

Povilas, Dave O., Brian, John, Maureen, Ann & Ian to compile comprehensive list of software problem, desired/required upgrades and enhancement All parties to hold a “triage meeting” to sort remaining tasks by priority: – Functionality/fixes essential to achieve commissioning – High desirable software task we will set as goals, but not requirements – Software functionality/performance elements that would be really nice, but we will probably not get to Achieving Software Stability (II)

Context for Triage Process Magellan operations assume observers are reasonably skilled and experienced Some light support from staff is provided, but expectation is that observers will know how to take their data We are rapidly reaching a point where the instrumentation works for observers who know what they are doing There is room for improvement, but at this point in time, with very few exceptions, people who know what they are doing get good data

Action Item List Create triage list Schedule software tasks Focus on transfer of information to instrumentation specialists Continue trnasfer of information on instrument mounting to Magellan staff Change u’ filter in Megacam Add final grism to MMIRS Prepare for commissioning

Commissioning f/5 Andrew Szentgyorgyi Magellan SAC Meeting Pasadena/17 Mar 2012

Commissioning Plan Performance, mechanics, electronics, computer ready for commissioning. Software is stabilizing, but not ready for commissioning Magellan and CfA staff will develop triage list CfA will draft a timeline to address top-tier tasks in the next ~1 – 1 ½ months Draft timeline will be submitted to SAC Will require several months to complete tasks Required commissioning documentation plan will be delivered to Consortium for commissioning in TBD months

Topic for Discussion Many (most?) software issue involve telescope interfaces For instruments with complicated telescope interfaces and high multiplicity of operating modes, might reevaluate balance of consortium and institutional engineering time levies to commission instruments Especially vis-á-vis AO