[ASA] Future use of UHRF

[Gayandhi De Silva]

Dear Colleagues,

Recently the AAO discovered that several optical components of the 
Ultra-High Resolution Facility (UHRF) spectrograph on the AAT have 
deteriorated beyond functionality. It is therefore currently not 
available for use. Our assessment of the situation is that a significant 
investment in hardware and labour is needed to restore UHRF to 
astronomical use.

Our statistics over the last 8 years show that UHRF has been the least 
requested instrument out of the facility-class instruments available on 
the AAT. Further more, there has been no Australian proposals submitted 
for UHRF during this period.

Therefore the AAO is assessing the impact of decommissioning UHRF and 
this email is to poll the community as to its need/use of such a 
Ultra-High (300K - 1 Million) resolution facility (note functionality of 
the UCLES spectrograph is not affected here).

In particular, if you anticipate using UHRF over the next 5 years, we 
ask that you respond to Gayandhi De Silva (gayandhi.desilva at aao.gov.au 
<mailto:gayandhi.desilva at aao.gov.au>) and indicate:

* What improvements to UHRF would be most useful for your science ?
* If implemented, how many nights do you anticipate requesting over the 
next 5 years ?
* What other facilities could you use in the event UHRF is decommissioned ?

Thank you.

Gayandhi De Silva

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/asa/attachments/20140801/c50bfcda/attachment-0003.html>