24th January 2005 Hoyle committee meeting room 11.30 - 13:00 Present: PSB, JRL, MR, RGM, MJI, DWE, WJS Apologies: STH, EGS Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Task list for 2005Q1 4. Report on recent JAC telecon 5. WFCAM commissioning update 6. Status of ESO FDR RIXs 7. Status of Data Centre Archives (onlining AAT archive) 8. APM building news 9. AOB - CASU grant review - VEGA grant - VDUC meeting Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI has made no further progress in comparing the FIRES project reduced data with ours - ongoing <<<< JRL has solved the ZPN WCS problem in IRAF. This has been implemented on the APM PCs but not yet on Solaris. It will get a wider release once it has had a bit more testing. WJS has talked to ATC regarding the issue of combining the two guide star data streams. The hardware will cope with this, but it will require a software request. This currently has less priority than enhancements to the WFS software. RGM contacted EGS regarding missing items in the revamped INT WFC web pages and these have now been sorted out. EGS needs to make sure INT WFC products database access is advertised on wfcsur web pages - ongoing <<<< MJI has produced and distributed bound copies of the latest grant bid DWE has explained our web setup to MR and shown him around it STH has updated and submitted the ETC document to ESO PSB sent the data dictionary files to JMS STH has not (as far as we know) generated a colour picture from the WFCAM data so that we can use it for advertising - ongoing <<<< MJI have drawn up a quarterly job list and circulated it for comments STH STH has not contacted Paul Hirst (and a suitable person at Edinburgh) so that the CASU link goes to our VDFS web page rather than our group home page - ongoing <<<< DWE added a WFCAM logo and link to the bottom of our VDFS web pages MJI has made a start on updating the CASU group web pages entry point - ongoing <<<< EGS it is not known what progress has been made on the calibration of large WFS surveys - ongoing <<<< STH has not created an internal web page to keep track of our various RAID arrays etc. - ongoing <<<< ALL updated their absences files PSB sorted out the Acrobat 7.0 stuff RGM passed on the information regarding a free PDF writer. Sadly, this was a Windoze-based product, not Linux/Unix. 2. Comments on WFAU minutes While the issue of data policies was being discussed, the transfer of data from CASU to ESO was raised. JRL reminded us that the plan was to push the data to ESO and that the relevant piece of code had been sent from ESO. However, this has not been installed/tested yet. MR was volunteered to carry on with this task and JRL will pass on the relevant information. <<<< The header problems encountered at WFAU were noted. These were due to a mixture of commissioning blank values, parts of SHDUs in the PHU and so on. Solutions to these problems are being actively pursued. There was some discussion on what was valid within FITS (eg blank lines). The EQUINOX keyword and ICRS was raised again. Although not relevant to ICRS there are good reasons to keep the EQUINOX keyword. 3. Task list for 2005Q1 Various aspects of the task list were discussed. There were no complaints about assigned tasks. It was noted that the next VDMT meeting would be on the 3rd of February. 4. Report on recent JAC telecon MJI reported on the telecon held on 14th January. The planned schedule is for WFCAM to be on sky about 3rd March with a contingency shutdown scheduled for 10-23th March. It is unknown whether the contingency will be needed. If not, some real observing will be carried out. Various aspects (features) of the WFCAM data were discussed. Paul Hirst (PH) is trying to deconstruct the outputs from the electronics to see where the banding (curtain effect) originates. PH came up with a plausible explanation for the differential (wrt time) nature of crosstalk in terms of its physical origin and also the nature of the persistence seen in the data. How to correct it is another matter. No explanation was available as to why Chip 2 is different with respect to reset anomalies (they are essentially absent on #2). For the next set of commissioning it is expected that JRL will go out to Hawaii for 2 weeks on 2nd/3rd March with STH going for 1 or 2 weeks on about 28th March (working on photometry with Sandy Leggett). DWE said that the CASU absences page can now be seen by JAC so they will know when CASU people will be available (and indeed absent). The next telecon will be 26th January. 5. WFCAM commissioning update JRL reported on some results since the meeting with Simon Dye. It looks like the dark frames are stable over a timescale of about a week if the readout mode is CDS and the exposure time is longer than 5-10s. He also pointed out that that these are really reset anomaly frames since the dark current contribution is very small. The glowing blob (scale 30 pixels) on chip 2 varies over a night. The current investigations are continuing with the dark frames and investigating the stacking of frames over 4 nights in order to create a sky flat. The next task was non-linearity. MJI said that he would prefer a higher priority given to this task since he needs it to do the next stage of his tests. MJI said that his report on the astrometry and photometry calibrations, plus other ancilliary information has been released on the web (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~wfcam/docs/reports/commissioning/). These calibrations have been carried out using 2MASS. The processed data astrometry is good to better than 100mas over the whole camera and monitoring sky conditions (and a good measure of the zero-point) using 2MASS calibrations look very promising - see the report for more details. 6. Status of ESO FDR RIXs PSB said that by Friday 82 RIXs had been received and some more have arrived this morning. PSB and MJI said that they would deal with as many as possible in order to help the work load of JRL. By mid-week an ASCII list of the RIXs and responses would be finished and sent to Jim Emerson and Malcolm Stewart for editing, reformatting and forwarding to ESO <<<< 7. Status of Data Centre Archives Progress with the AAT archive had been fine until recently. On Friday the DVD tower developed a fault and the server independently decided to have system disk wobbles. The plan is to have the AAT archive online before the grant review. <<<< 8. APM building news MJI said that the official completion date is 11th February, so it looks like we will be moving in the last week of February or a bit later. 9. AOB - CASU grant review This is likely to be held on 23rd of February in Cambridge. - VEGA grant We have finally received this grant which pays for a number of CASU personnel over the period October 2004 to end of September 2007. - VDUC meeting This will be on 21st February in Edinburgh. MJI and JRL will be likely attendees. RGM raised the issue of NAM and whether we should have a presence at it. This will be in Birmingham 4-8 April. The abstract deadline is 14 February and the registration deadline is 14 March. There is a parallel session on the Thursday entitled "New astronomical instrumentation" which might be suitable. All to have a ponder about this. <<<< WJS reported on a FMOS meeting he had attended in Oxford. This will be working by the end of this year. There was discussion on the formation of a UK consortium similar to UKIDSS. Continuing Actions ------------------ MJI continue with comparing FIRES project reduced data by further testing of a CASU seeing-weighted stacking procedure EGS make sure INT WFC products database access is advertised on wfcsur web pages STH generate a colour picture from the WFCAM data so that we can use it for advertising (by VDUC meeting in February or sooner) STH contact Paul Hirst (and a suitable person at Edinburgh) so that the CASU link goes to our VDFS web page rather than our group home page MJI finish updating the CASU group web pages entry point STH make an internal web page describing our disk resources New Actions ----------- MR install and test the ESO code for pushing WFCAM data over to ESO JRL PSB deal with as many RIXs as possible to help JRL out and then compile the MJI whole lot and send to JPE and JMS by Wednesday JRL STH JRL try and get AAT archive on-line by mid-February MR ALL consider what CASU presence might be needed for NAM 2005.