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        Minutes of SSC Meeting, 24 April 2001 

             Caltech, room 023 Robinson
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SSC members present:  Bolte, Steidel, Taylor, Luppino, Djorgovski, Chaffee,
Bob Millis (representing NASA), Quirrenbach, Miller, McClean. 
via phone: Mumma; via videocon: Sprayberry, Goodrich, Wirth (Hawaii).

other participants: Faber (phone), Hilton Lewis 

Documents distributed: KIRMOS report, DEIMOS status report, Hilton Lewis
report of Tasks for 2001  

-Announcements: 

 .The first of the UV sensitive MIT-LL `MBE' devices
  have been produced and tested and they look spectacularly good
  from 300nm out to 980nm.  

 .The June 4 meeting, if held, will be moved to CIT


-LRIS-B dewar/detector upgrade (K. Taylor)

  .working toward an early-August commissioning
  .VME + Leach II system assembled, undergoing testing
  .visit from Reinhold Dorn (ESO) in mid-June will coincide
    with Marconi detector installation
 
-KIRMOS update (K. Taylor)
  
 .work is progressing on system modeling to determine optimal
   slitwidths, spectral resolution, flexure sensitives and sky subtraction
   procedures.
 .optical design (Prime Optics, Qld) underway
 .mechanical design has been slowed by competing for resources with the
   new Blue Camera but Bob Weber will be moving full time to KIRMOS
   in May 2001. 
 .Phase A study to be delivered October 2001
 
-DEIMOS report (Faber, via phone)

  .flexure remains a problem. 
    +The grating box was reworked and tests
     on a bench suggested flexure reduced from 26 pixels peak-to-peak
     to < 3 pixels p-p.
 
    +it has been inferred that 12 pixels of the motion are possibly due to
     a moving element in the camera.

    +detector motion apparently contributes 4 pixels of the motion.

  .Sliders remain troublesome. There are four. These transport the imaging
    mirror and gratings to a handoff position where the element is pinned
    and clamped into place
 
    + Slider 2 carries the imaging mirror and works well.
    + Sliders 3 and 5 are similar and carry 6"x8" gratings. #3 delivers
      correctly at most, but not all rotations. #5 is not yet built but
      will be a clone of #3
    + Slider 4 is the most problematic and deflection causes problems in the
      handoff.

  .Image quality - a missing shim was inserted in the final camera element and
    image quality was improved to where it may be that expected for the camera at
    room temperature.

  .Dewar/detector/controller - full 16 amp readout slowed to 70 seconds. Lost
   one amp in one CCD
  
    +currently have seven good devices on the red side and need one more.

  .Coatings - it is proving difficult to identify vendors for getting coatings
   (in particular the instrument window) and expensive. This is becoming a pressing
   issue.

  .Schedule - have lost two weeks to the January 25, 2001 schedule. Pre-ship
    date moved to end of July.

-NIRC2 preship review:

  .NIRC2 passed the preship review held April 23, 2001. The remaining issue
   concern to be addressed in Pasadena is a pickup noise problem.
  .Ship to Hawaii in late May
  .First Light in mid-July
  .Perhaps first scheduled community observations for 2002A

The rest of the meeting was an extended Executive session.