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The NEID spectrograph on the WIYN 3.5-m telescope at Kitt Peak has completed its first full year of science operations and is reliably delivering sub-m/s precision radial velocity measurements. The NEID instrument control system uses the TIMS package (Bender et al. 2016), which is a client-server software system built around the twisted python software stack. During science observations, interaction with the NEID spectrograph is handled through a pair of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), written in PyQT, which wrap the underlying instrument control software and provide straightforward and reliable access to the instrument. Here, we detail the design of these interfaces and present an overview of their use for NEID operations. Observers can use the NEID GUIs to set the exposure time, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold, and other relevant parameters for observations, configure the calibration bench and observing mode, track or edit observation metadata, and monitor the current state of the instrument. These GUIs facilitate automatic spectrograph configuration and target ingestion from the nightly observing queue, which improves operational efficiency and consistency across epochs. By interfacing with the NEID exposure meter, the GUIs also allow observers to monitor the progress of individual exposures and trigger the shutter on user-defined SNR thresholds. In addition, inset plots of the instantaneous and cumulative exposure meter counts as each observation progresses allow for rapid diagnosis of changing observing conditions as well as guiding failure and other emergent issues., Published in Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2022; 12 pages

We present spectroscopic measurements of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for WASP-148b, the only known hot Jupiter with a nearby warm-Jupiter companion, from the WIYN/NEID and Keck/HIRES instruments. This is one of the first scientific results reported from the newly commissioned NEID spectrograph, as well as the second obliquity constraint for a hot Jupiter system with a close-in companion, after WASP-47. WASP-148b is consistent with being in alignment with the sky-projected spin axis of the host star, with $\lambda=-8^{\circ}.2^{{+8^{\circ}.7}}_{-9^{\circ}.7}$. The low obliquity observed in the WASP-148 system is consistent with the orderly-alignment configuration of most compact multi-planet systems around cool stars with obliquity constraints, including our solar system, and may point to an early history for these well-organized systems in which migration and accretion occurred in isolation, with relatively little disturbance. By contrast, previous results have indicated that high-mass and hot stars appear to more commonly host a wide range of misaligned planets: not only single hot Jupiters, but also compact systems with multiple super-Earths. We suggest that, to account for the high rate of spin-orbit misalignments in both compact multi-planet and isolated-hot-Jupiter systems orbiting high-mass and hot stars, spin-orbit misalignments may be caused by distant giant planet perturbers, which are most common around these stellar types., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

The NEID extreme precision radial velocity spectrometer is being commissioned at the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson Arizona. In order to meet the stringent 27 cm per second radial velocity precision, the light to NEID comes from an extremely stable fiber feed, called the NEID Port Adapter, equipped with fast tip-tilt correction. The WIYN telescope vibration environment and the Port Adapter tip-tilt and guiding system are key to achieving the 50 milliarcsecond-level centroiding stability required. Here we describe the servo system performance, along with vibration analysis and mitigation plans. This work would be relevant to upgrade and retrofit efforts as older observatories incorporate low-order wavefront correction to stabilize light to advanced spectrometers and imagers.