The Ohio State University College of Mathematical & Physical Sciences Department of Astronomy

Attendees: Jerry Mason, Bruce Atwood, Tom O'Brien, Paul Byard, Pat Osmer, Mark Derwent, Dan Pappalardo, & Rick Pogge

Note: this was mostly an Aluminizing update, but some MODS issues and news were discussed.

Optics

Paul Byard reports that we have taken delivery of the 2 red field flatteners from SOML, completing the set of field flatteners. These optics are used as the dewar windows for the red and blue cameras.

Steve Miller at SOML has sent a progress report on the polishing and testing of the blue camera corrector lenses. Steve reports that progress has been good and work continues.

Structure

Mark Derwent and Tom O'Brien are going to be visiting Indian Creek on Friday (Jan 30) to review work on the MODS upper structure. Recent (Jan 26) pictures from Indian Creek show that the upper part of the structure is mostly done, with a bit of work still remaining. The latest pictures are on the Instrument Structure pictures page. Look for images labeled "UpperFrame_YYMMDD" for dated images. Mark and Tom will get new pictures on Friday. Overall, progress on the upper structure fabrication remains excellent.

Mechanical Fabrication & Design

Tom is working on finishing detailing of the slit mask cassette and insertion mechanisms, preparatory to creating bid/work packages for fabrication. One open issue is the type of barcode scanner to use for the masks. Rick has been tasked with investigating that.

Guide Cameras

We have received word from Mike Lesser that our AGW camera system is ready to be shipped. Darren will look at this while at the SAC meeting later this week, and then we should receive it early next month. Mike Lesser has also sent us a test copy of the AzCam software suite in advance of the shipment so we can get a look at part of what we're getting into software-wise.

MODS Software

We have received a copy of the IIF and TCS code (v0.2) from Tim Schmelmer, and are setting it up on one of our lab machines. This will be our first look at the observatory instrument interface routines that we will be using for MODS.