Top End

Tom Geballe

Head of UKIRT Operations

Welcome to the first UKIRT Newsletter in several years, and to the first electronically available UKIRT Newsletter. Previously information about UKIRT was published in the UKIRT Newsletter until 1990, in the JCMT-UKIRT Newsletter until 1994, and in Spectrum until 1996. All of these newsletters were hardcopy only. We plan to publish the new, electronically available UKIRT Newsletter twice a year in the UKIRT world-wide web pages, as well as hardcopy versions which will be available to download from UKIRT's WWW pages. In the future, the timing of each new issue will be 1 month prior to the PATT deadline, i.e. approximately at the beginnings of March and September.

I am very pleased that the Upgrades Programme, now in its final year of funding, has already resulted in significant improvements to the telescope (e.g. see article on M87 in Ukirt Highlights) and that all of the major new instruments required in the next few years for UKIRT, UFTI (the fast-track 1024x1024 1-2.5 micron camera), Michelle (the 7-25 micron imager/spectrometer, and UIST (a 1-5 micron imager/spectrometer) are fully funded in the PPARC business plan. These instruments plus CGS4, some specialist visitor instruments, and our accessories such as IRPOL2 and one or possibly more Fabry-Perot interferometers, will provide UKIRT with basic imaging, spectroscopic, and polarimetric modes of high quality for years to come. We are concerned that as of now there is no funding for more advanced instruments for the longer term and also none for further telescope development beyond the conclusion of the current Upgrades programme. We will continue to advocate these, both of which are required to make UKIRT more powerful, versatile and competitive with and complementary to 3-4m and larger telescopes.

For those of us in Hawaii, supporting the UKIRT operation has been a strenuous challenge during the last few years, as our small (and ever changing, it seems) staff works with engineers and scientists in the U.K. and elsewhere to institute major improvements to the telescope, commission new and upgraded instruments, and at the same time minimize risk to our observers and maintain the ability to do high quality and world-beating astronomy. An example of this risk and the price we sometimes pay immediately comes to mind. Last evening (April 17) a failure of the CPU board in the telescope mount computer VME crate resulted in a loss of 6.5 hours of clear weather to UH observers. This was the first major failure of the mount computer since it was installed in November 1995. Determining the cause of the problem involved the effort of the telescope operator, an electrical engineer, and several of our software staff, one key member of which was in the U.K attending meetings on Michelle and UFTI and had to log in to JAC via modem (as the internets both in Cambridge and Hawaii were down) to modify the telescope control program. As more than one staff member noted, we may have lost 6.5 hours that night, but we also gained 5. [For a more entertaining account, see the article by Nick Rees]

There are times when many of us long for a quieter period in which we can devote most of our hours to standard support and to consolidating and fine-tuning the new telescope capabilities. This will not happen for a while. For example, with two new and badly needed instruments arriving during the next 18 months, much preparation in Hawaii is required. Thus, during the next few years many of the UKIRT staff will continue to juggle several critical projects in addition to supporting visiting observers. Such it is, I suspect, for any observatory with an ambitious development program and a committed staff. To be successful within its limited budget, the UKIRT operation balances the effort between support and development, making what we believe are appropriate compromises between the two. As always, we welcome suggestions and constructive criticism about the development of the observatory and about our support of visiting astronomers.

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