29th September 2004 Hoyle meeting room 10.00 - 12:30 Present: JRL, PSB, MJI, DWE, WJS, STH, JMI, RGM, EGS Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. JAC telecon updates 4. Report from Herschel meeting 5. VST meeting news/ SISCO meeting 6. Status RIX responses and FDR preparation 7. Update on ETC document 8. APM building work update 9. Current quarter reports and plans for next quarter 10. AOB Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI has made no progress in comparing the FIRES project reduced data catalogues with ours - ongoing <<<< STH has made no progress investigating MSBs - ongoing <<<< JRL requested more science data at the last but one JAC telecon. This data, consisting of flats and darks from the science chips is being sent to us on tape. STH will allocate a WP subtask for the next quarter to sort out the documents needed for the UK VDFS review and review the style requirements - ongoing until end of this quarter <<<< JRL has finished a draft of the ADASS poster. He will see Richard Sword shortly - ongoing <<<< WJS attended the Herschel meeting (see item 4) PSB booked the Hoyle committee room for the RIX telecon. There was some confusion regarding the phone line into the committee room. It is now a permanent line (66066). JRL discussed going to Hawaii in November at the JAC telecon (see item 3). STH sent the list of photometric standards to Paul Hirst. MJI inquired at the JAC telecon if MSBs would be tested during the first JRL commissioning period (see item 3). MJI found out that JPE had not sent the CPL/QFITS document to Michele Peron, but it has now been sent as requested PSB have updated the ETC document (see item 7) STH MJI PSB have moved all the computer racks from the APM building into room O25. MJI This is now too noisy to use as an office so MJI took up the option JMI on offer of occupying both O25 and H33. JRL has lobbied the IRAF people to fix the ZPN WCS problem in IRAF. The reply was along the lines of "great idea but no time to do it". JRL will look into the possibility of providing the update himself since this problem alone occupies more email and time than any other. <<<< JRL has put Rice compression somewhere prominent on the ADASS poster. He has discussed with Bill Pence the possibility of putting Rice compression into the FITS standard. This is not straightforward, so the suggestion is that it becomes part of an Inventory of Common Practice, which then becomes a de facto standard. This is one of the reasons that ds9 does not support Rice compression ie. it is not currently part of the FITS standard. We will encourage various VO people (eg. NAW for Astrogrid) to apply pressure to reap the benefit of the communication bandwidth saving it entails. <<<< WJS extended the email distribution list for the VST meeting and got a few more responses. 2. Comments on WFAU minutes It was noted that some data transfer testing was being carried out. There was some mention of UKLight networking. PSB and STH were volunteered to look into this. <<<< It was also noted that WFAU have made two job offers. 3. JAC telecon updates There have been 2 JAC telecons since the last meeting (13 and 28 Sept). JRL reported on these: The corrector has been accepted and is currently enjoying a beach holiday in Honolulu. There is a possibility that some survey MSBs will be tested during the on-sky commissioning period in late November, contingent on various success and stress levels. As anticipated there is a distint possibility the linearity correction will not happen in the DAS, at least initially. However, due to amazing foresight we do have an escape clause (a nifty algorithm - written and tested) which gets us around the problem and would have been used for linearity test purposes anyway. There is a bit of concern from the Cambridge end that the microcode timing parameters that enable the reset frame effective exposure time to be computed will not propagate into the headers. There was some discussion if this could be done via the software version number and/or the WFCAM configuration startup file. The cunning plan (as it stands) is: 21st October open shutters for first light first data 3-4 days later (during ADASS!) autoguider commissioning and focus tests until 15 November 1 week off to adjust the shims 22nd November for 8 days for on-sky tests. JRL will head off for Hawaii 17-18 November for these after these tests WFCAM will be off until start of February. ...... but watch this space. 4. Report from Herschel meeting WJS reported on the Herschel meeting he attended last week at Sussex University. This was to sort out the open time proposals which can only really be decided upon when the guaranteed time proposals (30%) have been chosen. This is because duplicates are not allowed. Herschel (2008 launch) is very sensitive, but has a poor resolution, so will be confusion limited. It will mainly be doing surveys and concentrating on redshifts between 1 and 3. The ExtraHOT consortium was mentioned. The main result was that although plans for Herschel surveys are still tentative it is clear that there will be a LOT of mid-IR/far-IR/submm space+ground-based surveys starting up in the next few years, so the optical & IR survey telescopes will have plenty to contribute to those. 5. VST meeting news/SISCO meeting At the SISCO meeting in Groningen there was a discussion session about planned VST (+UKIDSS/VISTA) surveys (extragalactic in motivation). There are two fairly large guaranteed-time plans, VESUVIO : Italian-led, survey of Horologium and Hercules superclusters, >~ 1 mag deeper than Sloan, for galaxy parameters vs environment about 50-100 sq deg and 80-100 nights spread over several years VST-16 : German-led, like COMBO-17 with 5 Sloan + 11 narrowbands, with 10x the area (about 10 square degrees and 50 nights). Also some modest-size surveys eg. to look for supernovae. The biggest public-time survey plan is KIDS (Kilo Degree Survey) led by Konrad Kuijken, ~1000-1500 deg^2 to ~2 mag deeper than Sloan duration ~250-300 nights, with weak lensing as a major goal. Initial plan was NGP equatorial stripe only but it now looks like it may get bigger and/or split into NGP+SGP to cover most of the 2dFGRS areas, spread out RAs and complement VISTA/VLT/ALMA/South Pole etc. - to be processed by AstroWise. There is also likely to be a proposal from Seb Oliver et al. to go deep on the southern SWIRE fields ( CDF-S + ELAIS-S1 + maybe XMM-LSS ), ~15-25 deg^2 total. In the ~ 100 deg^2 region of parameter space it appears that CFHLS-Wide has a head start so there are no firm VST plans at present (but this may change depending on when CFHLS goes public, whether the RA distribution needs balancing etc ). There don't appear to be any plans at present to do anything wider/shallower than KIDS, but a ~10,000 deg^2 snapshot survey (possibly i-band only to complement VISTA J, Ks, or possibly more visible bands) was felt worth investigating further with a view to fleshing out the science case (e.g. ASTRO-F + WISE complementarity). There are also some Galactic projects, but these were not discussed at the meeting. The UK VST meeting is going ahead as a telecon on 6th October. 6. Status RIX responses and FDR preparation PSB said that over the last week a new 1618 (V2) document has been made available. This has similar deliverables to V1, but more detail, and also a requirement to deliver software modules to work in the CPL+QFITS environment. This is notionally for second generation VLT instruments but also provides a better guide to DFS deliverables in general. There was some discussion about the amount of work required to deliver the FDR documents to the V2 standard. Although for FDR a new document will be needed - the Data Reduction Library Design document - it seems that the existing DRS document provides a good starting point. However, a firm committment to CPL+QFITS has to be made before proceeding down this route. 7. Update on ETC document STH said that V2 of 1618 made a lot more sense for designing an acceptable ETC document. However, an example document conforming to V2 would still be very useful (eg. VMOS). STH will ask JMS if he can get a copy of this. <<<< PSB said that an allowance for, and computation of, saturation needed to be added to the document. <<<< RGM mentioned a useful web page he had stumbled across with lots of relevant documentation. He and STH then got distracted by trying to find it again, sans success. Meanwhile, JRL said that he was working on assessing CPL functionality by trying to create an example program. However he reported that he was having problems with package compatibility and will ask Nuria for assistance. <<<< 8. APM building work update The move out of the APM building has been completed. The only casualty was apm3's RAID array. JMI is working on recovering the data from a tape backup and a last gasp data dump. <<<< There is still some junk left in the APM building which needs removing by Monday. MJI will speak to Peter Weeks about this and tell him what needs keeping and what ditching. <<<< PSB and MJI noted that there is still a worry about the security camera and fibre optic cabling routed through the building and that they will need to liaise with the electrician about this. <<<< The APM building wake including the (probable) last outing of the (in) famous blue APM ping-pong table will be held on Friday lunchtime/afternoon. It was not known when the first of the monthly building works liaison meetings will be held. MJI will find out from Paul Aslin. <<<< 9. Current quarter reports and plans for next quarter Quarterly reports and plans in to STH by Friday. <<<< 10. AOB MJI said that the CASU rolling grant due date has been revised slightly to align with WFAU's and is set for mid-November. It will be the standard a 5 year roller (ie. a review after 3 years and then bid again) with some interesting juggling for WFCAM (and VISTA) operational requirements. JRL raised the issue of the Christmas party. He asked for ideas for venues. The opinion was that the venue needed to be within cycling distance. <<<< Continuing Actions ------------------ MJI compare FIRES project reduced data catalogues with ours STH investigate GPS MSBs (and any others obtained via Simon Dye) STH allocate a WP subtask for the next quarter to sort out the documents needed for the UK VDFS review and review the style requirements JRL finish ADASS poster with Richard Sword MJI remind NAW about the benefits of Rice compression for the VO New Actions ----------- JRL look into fixing ZPN WCS problem in IRAF PSB investigate UKLight networking STH STH ask JMS for an example ETC document (eg VMOS) conforming to 1618 V2 STH add a discussion of saturation to ETC document JRL get CPL example working (email Nuria) JMI attempt to recover data from apm3 RAID array MJI contact Peter Weeks so that he knows what needs to be kept MJI find out from Paul Aslin when the first liaison meeting would be held PSB make sure that the electrician knows which cables are vital and which MJI are surplus to requirements ALL send quarterly reports and plans in to STH by Friday ALL send in Christmas party venue suggestions to JRL