SupIRCam availability in Semester 10B and beyond

In August 2009 the cooling system of our near-IR camera SupIRCam failed and the instrument was taken off-sky while an assessment was made of future options. In November 2009 the cooling system was repaired and observations resumed. However, it was decided at that time that no future repairs would be made to the system and it was only offered to users in shared-risk mode.

On July 11th 2010 the cooling system for SupIRCam failed again. A review of the decision made in November 2009 confirmed that it should not be repaired, effort instead being concentrated on the development of the new infrared-Optical camera IO. SupIRCam is therefore no longer available for use on the LT, and will be removed from the telescope in September 2010.