MINIcam first light on the 1.2m
                         Aug 31, 2004

The camera returned from Cambridge on Aug 30, after Brian McLeod and
Andy Szentgyorgyi fitted the new mounting flange and corrector
optics. Thanks go to Mark Ordway and CE for excellent engineering.

After 2 days of intense work preparing the telescope and installing
the camera, we were ready to test it on the sky on Aug 31. Thanks 
are due to Ted Groner, Bob Hutchins and Wayne Peters for their
strenuous, successful efforts to have the telescope and camera ready.

For the first image, which had to await a storm moving away, Dave
Latham, Andy Szentgyorgyi, Ted Groner, Wayne Peters and Emilio Falco
were present. The image revealed a lack of collimating, which was
expected because both mirrors had been removed and remounted, and the
primary had been returned to an optimal position in its cell after
realuminization. The quality of the images is already quite obviously
superior to that of 4shooter images.

After a few iterations of first translating the secondary and then
focusing and collimation, we achieved what appeared a reasonable
collimation, although the calculations were not converging as one
expects. The seeing was also mediocre.  After WP and EF had to leave,
TG and DL proceeded with additional testing. They measured the
rotation of the camera, and discovered that E and W were reversed on
the CCD, thereby throwing off the collimation calculations. Once that
was cured, the collimation procedure converged beautifully.

The camera is now rotated to close alignment with cardinal directions
on the sky. Focus for MINIcam appears to be about 0.15 mm closer to 
the primary compared to 4shooter. Preliminary estimates indicate that
the pixel scale is about 0.30 arcsec/pixel, slightly smaller than for
4shooter.

The software to run the camera is quite useable but still requires work
for general use. We will attempt to minimize any differences with 
4shooter commands to minimize disruption of scripts. Improved 
pointing (which we expect now that the primary is not moving as
it did before) will await a new pointing model, which we plan to
determine as soon as possible.

Although we initially prepared 4shooter in case MINIcam failed, we are
now letting it warm up. If you have any questions on how the new
camera may affect your observations, please contact the Ridge staff as
soon as possible.