15 February 2005
INFRARED-OPTICAL TELESCOPE ARRAY (IOTA) OBSERVING PROPOSALS
May through August 2005
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Briefly:
1. Due date: noon on Tuesday, March 8, 2005
2. To submit a proposal, please follow the proposal guidelines at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/IOTA/Schedules/ .
3. Three telescopes are in routine operation in phase-closure
mode. The new (11/02) 3-beam integrated optics H-band combiner
from Grenoble has achieved H=7. The 3-beam free-space RIJHK
combiner is still under adjustment, and should not be counted on
for the coming trimester. If you are considering the 2-beam
asymmetric combiner, contact John Monnier (monnier@umich.edu)
first. The new star tracker from Lincoln Labs was improved to
give lower dark current and lower read noise, and will be
available. The frame grabber is available for star acquisition
and alignment. Two direct-view prisms for J and H have been
tested, and software is being developed now; these will give about
3 pixels of dispersion across H-band for the small prism, and 7
pixels for the large prism. An automatic alignment system is
being built and is already partly available.
4. Construction of the control-room addition to the IOTA building
was completed in mid-2004. Pictures are at our web site.
5. We formally shut down during July, August, and much of
September, but if you wish to do some work during this time, in
spite of the poor weather, we will try to accomodate.
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Comments:
The IOTA consortium invites observing proposals for the IOTA
interferometer on Mt. Hopkins, AZ.
We welcome proposals from new or experienced IOTA observers. New
observers should work with experienced ones on-site each night.
For safety, no one should work alone at IOTA.
Recognizing that SAO has a major investment in IOTA, we ask that
scientific work with IOTA include SAO personnel as collaborators.
Our web site has been updated, a complete list of IOTA-related
papers added, and many papers made available on-line:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/IOTA/
Instructions for operations are on this site as well.
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People:
* Dr. Marc Lacasse has been the resident IOTA engineer/scientist
in Tucson since August 1995; Marc's first priority is to work
towards making IOTA a facility-type instrument; his second
priority is to assist observers. His Tucson office is at Steward
Observatory 520-670-5750, his on-site phone is 520-670-6757, his
beeper is 520-703-8976, and email is mlacasse@cfa.harvard.edu.
* Dr. Peter Schuller joined the IOTA group in March 2003. He is
responsible for the star-tracker and other projects, including the
web site. Peter is at pschuller@cfa.harvard.edu or 617-495-7491.
* Dr. Ettore Pedretti is a Michelson post-doc at the University of
Michigan, with Prof. John Monnier. He continues to advise and
observe at IOTA. He is at 734-647-9767 or epedrett@umich.edu
* Dr. Hervé Le Coroller joined the IOTA group in January 2005. He
is based at the California Association for Research in Astronomy
(CARA) in Kamuela, HI, working with Dr. Sam Ragland on the Mira
Imaging Project.
* Dr. Sam Ragland is now an Interferometry Scientist at the Keck
Observatory. As PI for The Mira Imaging Project he will be at
IOTA often. He is at 808-881-3516 or sragland@keck.hawaii.edu .
* Dr. Pascal Borde received his PhD from Meudon in late 2003, and
joined us at the CfA as a Michelson post-doc in December 2003,
working on TPF coronagraph designs. He is at 617-496-4773.
* Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger received her PhD from Karl-Franzens
University in Graz, Austria in 2004, and joined us at the CfA in
January 2005, working on TPF science. She is at 617-495-7158.
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Questions? Contact Wes Traub <wtraub@cfa.harvard.edu> .
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Wesley A. Traub wtraub@cfa.harvard.edu
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden St., Cambridge MA 02138
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/IOTA/
tel 617-495-7406; cell 978-852-6390; fax 617-496-0121
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