2022-07-07 Meeting notes

1:05

Words from Randy

Randy

• From council

  • looking back at last few years and see how council has executed promises

  • Recruiting: now much more efficient, now nearly fully staffed

  • Retention: communication, compensation, onboarding. More focussed effort there.

  • Gallup survey of staff didn’t go anywhere, now out of date

  • Looking at other survey options

  • Rosalie: is this instead of a “climate survey”?

  • Randy: this was the Gallup survey, but dropped when Roy left

  • Looking in to ways to listen to staff. Gretchen has used “tiny pulse” (sp?) tool.

  • Jim: have we created salary imbalances by quickly staffing up?

  • Randy: have looked at that and made adjustments.

  • Jim: performance reviews, haven’t done in a while. Have changed systems a lot. Is that being looked at?

  • Randy: yes, being looked at, going to be brief, easy, simple, focussed on goals. Keep track star, but refactor it.

• Aug and Sept support schedule draft out, please review

• Keck Science Meeting

  • Will try to send as many SAs as possible, emphasis on new SAs

1:16

22B sched and projects

Randy

discuss some of the upcoming challenges with phasing of all the projects, AO, KRCM, KPF, OSIRIS service, NIRC2, LRIS, LFC, etc.

• Lots going on this 22B semester

• Also NIRES guider upgrade (August)

  • FYI Shui just left for a month

• Marc and Jeff have submitted FY23 plans for instruments, DSI, KOA = lots of hours

• KCRM is likely slipping in to 23A. Just shipped camera optics to CalTech, then at CalTech for 3 month, then ship to us.

• OSIRIS

  • Begin warmup on 9/5, Begin service on 9/15, begin pumping 9/18, begin cooldown 9/28, K1 eng starting around 10/8

• KPF

  • Lots of FIU install work in July and August

  • FIU realigned in lab this week

  • FVCs do appear to work thanks to realignment

  • Main spectrograph shipment going out soon, be here late July depending on shipping details

  • Have plan for July & August AO access balancing OSIRIS, KPF FIU, and RTC/KAPA

• NIRC2 detector electronics upgrade

  • Replace transputers with ARCHON

  • Work being done at Caltech, happening in Fall and Winter

• Laser Frequency Comb (for NIRSPEC and KPIC)

  • Also an LFC in KPF, some of the KPF IR frequencies may go to NIRSPEC to broaden wavelength range

  • Also happening in this time frame

• LRIS Refurbishment also in FY23

  • Descoped since LRIS II is now supposed to be a thing

  • LRIS II is maybe 4-5 years away

  • CalTech instrument money will likely help fund LRIS II

• Other future instruments: LIGER (OSIRIS replacement), HISPEC, SCALES, DEIMOS Detector Upgrade (funded), KWFI

• Also AO work (Jim says to ostrich it and pretend it’s not there)

1:44

quick focus updates

all

Go around with each SA sharing their focus for the near term, and challenges that need extra support / coordination

• Josh

  • KPF + DSI, especially the integration of the two

  • Possible SA help: LFC support. Should we merge support of IR LFC and KPF LFC?

  • Going to SPIE

• Percy

  • NIRES Guider, LRIS service and maintenance of scripts, LRIS polarimeter fix

  • This is now second attempt to repair polarimeter.

  • PypeIt is painful for research, have to rerun everything on updates.

  • Michael is also using PypeIt for LRIS and DEIMOS

  • Sherry: access to local PypeIt machines? Sunil also stuck with LRIS reductions. Talking to Max B. and John.

    • Software groups wants policy before doing this.

    • Primary need is someone to maintain PypeIt install

• Rosalie

  • Scheduling work for KCWI prior to red side arriving

    • Uses John V., Brett S., and Dwight

  • NIRSPEC support training

• Chien-Hsiu

  • Learning support for LRIS and ESI

  • AO Summer School in August

  • Doing some work with KOA interfaces

  • Akamai student

  • KPF DRP

• Max

  • Investigating low bandwidth stability problems

  • Watch pyramid fix to learn about that system

  • Investigating K1 wavefront sensor instability

  • Going to SPIE

• Jim

  • Both AO systems are “in a state”

  • Going to SPIE

  • Working on AO Ops milestones for next FY

• Michael

  • Slitmask design tool software. Shui ran in to roadblock in spring. Michael is working on more direct IRAF conversion.

  • KCWI DSI Translator

• Sherry

  • AO support and troubleshooting

  • Safety plan and JHA for OSIRIS service

  • Shift back to KPF after

  • Away for a few days in August

  • Gone for a while in Nov and December

• Kyle

  • Tasks which pertain to this group: KPF, specifically the kpfguide system (coordinate systems, guide offloading, etc.).

  • KCWI once it is cabled up and available

• Randy

  • Scheduling issues. Schedule is more and more complex.

  • When will projects be ready for on sky engineering?

  • Science scheduling with Carolyn, GBS is time consuming

  • Support schedule for next semester

  • Council: annual reviews may start up

  • Going to KSM

  • A lot of support for K1 AO galactic center science coming up

• Randy and Jim will have science visitor coming, dates TBD. Probably early August. Larissa Takeda (sp?).

2:25

Pau!