SALT Board Meeting #19: May 2006 Board Meeting #19: 8-9 May Astronomy Operations Now 3 SOs: Fred, Sandisa, Lucian (Francois resigned), with Charl (Tracker Mech. Tech.) as a backup (e.g. for illness, leave, etc). –Additional responsibilities to include ELS reporting, environmental trending & reporting (nightly summaries), calibrations –2 weeks on 1 week off routine (8 h nights; two shifts) All 6 SAs (Encarni, Petri, Martin, Nicola, Alexei & Yas) are now in place and fully trained –Various responsibilities assigned –Regular observing (1 week in 6) scheduled and Cape Town backup –Webpage developments –Beginning data analysis and evaluation –PI tools continuing to be developed Additional assistance from Res. Fellows/Post Docs –Ramotholo Sefako (past UW postdoc; SA in training) –Lisa Crause (PAC’s postdoc) –Hannah Worters (UCLAN postgraduate student) –Arfon Smith (U. Nottingham postgraduate student) –Christian Hettlage (Postdoc Java developer on-loan from Göttingen) –Some giving general assistance to SAs at telescope

SALT Board Meeting #19: May 2006 Board Meeting #19: 8-9 May Astronomy Operations Night-time activities –IQ tests top priority –Many other engineering support priorities (e.g. Cal. Sys., guidance characterization) –Instrument support for RSS (e.g. obtaining throughput data) –The many problems still with reliability and efficiency will hopefully benefit from S/W fix weeks Liaison with PIs –Status report on SALT & Instruments –Webpage access to relevant SA Intranet pages »Data Quality webpages »Sample data for potential PIs/SSWG/Board to scrutinize & offer opinions –Resurrecting SALTeNEWS Data reductions –Meetings held with interested parties (SAs, SAAO astronomers & postdocs, IT division) –QUACK (LAB) installed and being used for on-line reductions –Development of other S/W (e.g. continuing development of SALT IRAF package) –S/W management and planning processes (version control, S/W repositories)

SALT Board Meeting #19: May 2006 Board Meeting #19: 8-9 May Astronomy Operations Breakdown of Science Time Nov (after 11th): –Science: 13 h –Technical time: 94 h –Weather down time: 31 h Dec: –Science: 50 h –Technical time: 104 h –Weather down time: 36 h Jan (until 26th): –Science: 11 h 49 m –Technical time: 96 h 20 m –Weather down time: 40 h 41 m Since Feb BEC, most efforts in support of Image Quality campaign, telescope subsystem & RSS commissioning. Science (P-V) is second priority to getting SALT and RSS commissioned.

SALT Board Meeting #19: May 2006 Board Meeting #19: 8-9 May Astronomy Operations Final Remarks SALT and instruments still not commissioned –Premature for full P-V phase Telescope & control efficiency issues –Reliability (esp. TCS, Tracker) Some discernable improvements with advent of dedicated S/W & Eng. weeks –Commissioning observations only really beginning P-V at lower priority behind IQ work, subsystem comm. & RSS commissioning. Lots of Payload issues still to resolve Instrument characterization being done Expect progress on many aspects over next 3-4 months, but realistically won’t be into full P-V work until latter part of year. Will depend on how long IQ and other issues will take to fix. SALT Ops Staff (Eng. & Ast.) & many SAAO staff have thrown themselves fully into addressing many outstanding issues. Assistance has been forthcoming from some partners (e.g. UKSC & Göttingen), in line with the expectations of partners to contribute to commissioning as per the Shareholders Agreement. We would welcome similar assistance from suitably skilled students/postdocs, etc.