17th February 2005 Observatory meeting room 10.00 - 13:00 Present: PSB, JRL, MR, RGM, MJI, DWE, EGS, STH Apologies: WJS Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. APM building news - desktop systems for CASU members 4. VST submitted proposals 5. FDR VDFS documents - tests of VISTA data 6. JAC telecons 7. WFCAM commissioning update - WFAU transfers, ESO transfers 8. VDUC meeting 9. Grant review strategy 10. Plans for Open day 11. AOB Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI has made no further progress in comparing the FIRES project reduced data with ours - ongoing <<<< EGS has placed an INT WFC products database access point on the wfcsur web pages (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~wfcsur/index.php). Examples and some screenshots are shown. STH has made progress on generating a colour picture from the WFCAM data so that we can use it for advertising. Using the Lockman Hole data he has generated a tile, but it has a "pedestal" offset. Some manual calibration is required. It was pointed out that this needs to be done by the VDUC meeting (Monday) - ongoing <<<< The ONC (Orion Nebular Cluster, M42) data will be better for a publicity shot, so the data needs to be processed. JRL said he would try and process the 3 broadband data sets, similar timescale. <<<< STH has emailed Paul Hirst so that the CASU link goes to our VDFS web page rather than our group home page, but has not had a response from him - ongoing <<<< He did not think that there was a problem with the Edinburgh pages. (DWE only found one page that seemed to have this problem: http://www.roe.ac.uk/atc/projects/vista/software/ Malcolm Stewart would probably be the person to contact.) MJI has made no further progress on updating the CASU group web pages entry point - ongoing <<<< EGS has made progress on the calibration of large WFS surveys. More tests are required - ongoing <<<< EGS was also volunteered to write something on this work for the ING Spring Newsletter. <<<< STH has created a nice picture showing our various CPUs, RAID arrays, etc. He was not too sure that an ASCII file would not be better. He will think some more on this. <<<< MR has installed and started the testing of the ESO code for pushing WFCAM data over to ESO. The script checks to see if an image is present in a particular directory and then pushes the data over to ESO. If all is OK (a checksum operation), the image is moved to a further directory at Cambridge. Unfortunately the checksum information is not being sent back correctly from ESO at the moment. A new server is being installed at ESO??, further tests will be carried out - ongoing <<<< MR pointed out that he has now received the source code for this software. JRL reported that he has sent data (images, flatfields and catalogues) that has been processed through the interim pipeline to Edinburgh. He has not had any comments back yet. PSB has sorted out the RIXs for the FDR (see item 5). JRL have made no progress getting the AAT archive on-line. The DVD tower MR is definitely dead. It was decided to defer this until we have moved back into the APM building - ongoing <<<< ALL have been deep in thought considering what CASU presence might be needed for NAM 2005. The talk deadline was the 14th February, but the website says "further abstracts will be accepted until 28th February 2005 for those sessions not yet full". The poster deadline is 28th February. STH was volunteered to write an abstract (today) and see how far he gets. <<<< MJI said that he can attend NAM on the Thursday. 2. Comments on WFAU minutes The Greater AstroGrid (GAG) concept was noted and it was thought that they have a naming problem. The Lesser AstroGrid (LAG) project also has a similar problem. 3. APM building news PSB reported that they were still working on the inside. They will possibly be finished by the end of the week. There is still one or two weeks of work on the outside (foul drain backing up and re-laying the "driveway"). The holes in the floor for the cabling were not ideal. The old specially "hacked" floor tiles with holes had been thrown away by the workmen. Many more holes will have to be made when the computer racks get installed. Another irritant is that the carpet tiles do not have the same pitch as the floor tiles. Gigabit Ethernet has been installed throughout the building. The main computers will move at the end of the month. People can move in as soon as the workmen have left. There will be 8 phone lines in the new building. STH suggested that we buy a conference phone. RGM said that a reasonable quality one would cost about £350. There was then a discussion on what new desktops (and other equipment) was needed by the group. The main requirements for desktops would be for RWA, MR and EGS, since they currently have old systems. PSB suggested that they go for Suns rather than Linux boxes, but it would be left up to individual users to decide. There was a general request for a colour printer. STH wanted a desktop Macintosh to replace cass139. This would be useful for the preparation of CASU spreadsheets etc. Replacing the few remaining monitors with flat screen ones was considered, but not thought a priority at the moment. Setting up a wireless system was thought desirable, but PSB said that it would be an administrative burden. He added that there is an overall solution to the IoA issue of wireless systems, but that it would be technically challenging. The current computer systems have ~15 Tbytes of RAID storage and a number of tape systems available. There were no plans for new general purpose disk and tape systems, but several hardware purchases for WFCAM processing are planned. RGM raised the issue of laptops and mentioned the IoA policy of providing all postdocs with a (minimum specification) laptop. No CASU member should be buying their own laptop. 4. VST submitted proposals RGM reported on the 4 VST proposals submitted from the UK. Three are linked with VDFS: Seb Oliver (SWIRE) Tom Shanks & RGM (Sloan South) Steve Warren (LAS) The other proposal is from a consortium led by Janet Drew. All these proposals would add up to all the available VST public survey time (~40%). In all likelihood, the UK would not get more than get 20% of the total VST observing time after allowing for earmarked guaranteed time and PI time. A data management plan has been drawn up by JPE and RGM based on the VDFS model and has been used as the basis for the data management section in these applications. There were some questions about the global calibration and the stacking of data from multiple years. In both cases it was stated that this would not be the responsibility of CASU, although providing the stacking software was a CASU responsiblity. The location of the various proposals is: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/vdfs/internal/vst/ 5. FDR VDFS documents - tests of VISTA data Around 100 RIXs were received, replied to and documented within 3 days, thanks to sterling efforts from the whole team, including management. These were also delivered to ESO in time for the FDR. The FDR was held at ESO HQ, Garching on 31st January. Attendees for VDFS were MJI, PSB, WJS, JMS, JPE (chair), Steven Beard, Martin Folger, Alistair McPherson. JRL, STH "attended" via videocon. Much lively debate was had and most remaining outstanding issues were clarified. Some technical modifications to design and documents will still be needed but there were no showstoppers and the general view was that the VDFS FDR submissions were well received and of the appropriate standard. It was unclear what the ESO reaction to the VISTA Data Dictionary document was. MJI was requested to ask JMS about this. <<<< An update on the VISTA and VDFS schedules was also requested. MJI will inquire about this at the next VDMT meeting. <<<< PSB said that since the FDR, CASU are dealing with 74 of the RIX responses. 39 are trivial and 35 will need more work. These have an absolute deadline of the end of March, but in reality this means some progress will be needed by the end of February. PSB will parcel out these tasks. <<<< Some of this work has started to stall due to some of the RIXs being unclear. Acquiring the board disposition from JPE would help with this. <<<< PSB also said that Steven Beard had created some new templates which would need examining carefully in light of the FDR. It is intended to have a small CASU meeting at the end of next week to discuss the RIXs. <<<< A set of VISTA multiplexor FITS files was obtained from Guy Woodhouse at RAL. A number of problems are apparent with these files. It was also noted that with the new version of the IRAC software and the availability of the TCS simulator that in principle test VISTA FITS data, with headers, could be produced. PSB is liaising with Steven Beard about the implementation of the full MEF format. 6. JAC telecons JRL reported that the last telecon was on 8 February. Only JRL, Paul Hirst (PH) and Simon Dye could attend. WFCAM update: the cause of the dodgy channel on one detector has been identified as a cabling problem. Due to timescales, JAC will try and replace this themselves. The schedule has slipped by about a week. WFCAM will be on the telescope about 6/7th March and will be useable on-sky from about the 10th March. The "curtaining" seen in the data cannot be removed by using the extra bias strips because this would involve considerable rewiring and software effort. PH is still investigating the raw (raw) data to try and narrow down the cause of this problem. The focussing problem with the A/G has been sorted out (an errant screw). There is a possible bug in the non-destructive read software. This might explain some of the problems experienced with the dark frames. There was a request from JAC for some of the raw (raw) data that JRL had backed up on tape while he was there (this is normally only saved for 24 hours). On the software front, the OT has been released and the SDT is imminent. Regarding the crud on the field lens, nightly cleaning is not an option. The solution to be adopted will be to place a shield to one side of the lens and park the telescope such that the shield keeps dust off the lens during the day or inclement weather. There was a comment about the desirability of flushing the system (several short exposures) after changing filters to remove the persistance effects from saturated sky on the unshielded detectors. PH is concerned about observing efficiency when carrying out 2x2 microstepping along with dither offsets. This is especially the case with the shallow LAS survey. This needs to be discussed at the VDUC meeting. <<<< The next JAC telecon will be tomorrow (18th February). STH requested that more warning be given about these telecons. <<<< There was a discussion as to the usefulness of keywords describing the tile centre in addition to the position of the pawprint. 7. WFCAM commissioning update - WFAU transfers, ESO transfers The period 10-22 March will be engineering time. JRL will go out as previously suggested on 2/3 March and stay for a couple of weeks. It has been requested that that STH go out about 2 weeks earlier than planned. STH was flexible about this but would like to discuss the plan. The UKIDSS startup time would be notionally 16-23 March. STH suggested that it might be efficient for him to stay longer on Hawaii as an UKIDSS observer. This will be discussed at the JAC telecon. JRL pointed out that after coming back from Hawaii, he will be away from 28 March to 8 April. JRL gave a quick report on the processing. The Lockman Hole data has the curtaining problem. This is being calibrated by mapping all channels onto one and doing a 2d correction. MJI suggested that a 1d correction would be more robust. After removing this, what would be left would be a quadrant-based gradient of around 5-6 counts. There is a problem when mosaicing data (as noted by STH above). This is possibly a gain or non-linearity correction problem, however, it doesn't affect catalogues so much so is not as urgent as other problems. It has been found that the linearity correction takes significant time. Some code tweaking has been carried out and a factor of 2 in speed gained. Cross-talk and persistence still have not been dealt with. MJI said that he needed a rough idea of the magnitudes of the effects for the VDUC meeting. <<<< 8. VDUC meeting On Monday 21 February there will be a VDUC meeting at Edinburgh. MJI and JRL will attend. MJI will give a CASU overview and JRL will go into more detail on the WFCAM characteristics. 9. Grant review strategy The Grant Review Panel will hold the review on Wednesday 23 February at Cambridge. CASU will give a compromise presentation of 4 medium-size talks rather than one big presentation of lots of short talks. MJI - Overview Floor van Leeuwen - Gaia STH - research aspects JRL - pipeline/archive This will cover about 2 hours. If allowing for 50:50 presentation to discussion, then each will have 15 minutes. It was requested that MJI email Simon Berry for the referee's comments. <<<< All of CASU (ie. on the grant bid) were invited to the lunch on Wednesday. WFAU will give their presentation in the morning and CASU in the afternoon. There will be a dry run on Tuesday at 2pm. RGM said that he would look at the presentations beforehand. 10. Plans for Open day We are expected as a group to give a display, however, the APM building will not be open to the public then since it will be in the process of being sorted out. What posters have we already got? Are they suitable for Ms. Public? The use of Schmidt films and the corradograph was suggested. MJI will ask RWA about this. <<<< 11. AOB RGM suggested that MR and EGS join the UKIDSS consortium. <<<< RGM said that an article on pipeline processing of WFCAM data for the next UKIRT newsletter should be written. This had already been done (actually summary of results from the processing of commissioning data). RGM said that the AstroGrid software release (1.0), which was due at the end of December, will be available at the end of March. There will be a second release (1.1) at the end of June. PPARC expects this software to be installed at all UK data centres. PSB asked who will pay for the installation effort and possible extra hardware. This is unclear although a possible resource of £5-10k was mentioned. A deployment group, headed by Kona Andrews, has been set up. There should be a meeting to discuss this (after the grant review). <<<< It was decided that for now STH would be the CASU AstroGrid point of contact ie. he gets all the emails. Also there will be an AstroGrid agenda item for future meetings. <<<< There was a general discussion about what we were expected to do and what it would all involve. JRL volunteered MR to help on the database side. Continuing Actions ------------------ MJI continue with comparing FIRES project reduced data by further testing of a CASU seeing-weighted stacking procedure STH generate a colour picture from the WFCAM data so that we can use it JRL for advertising (by VDUC meeting Monday). STH continue contacting people so that the CASU links go to our VDFS web page rather than our group home page MJI finish updating the CASU group web pages entry point EGS finish the calibration of the large WFS surveys. STH finish off the internal web page (picture or ASCII table) describing our disk resources MR finish tests on the ESO code for pushing WFCAM data over to ESO JRL try and get AAT archive on-line by mid-February (deferred) MR STH write an abstract for NAM 2005 as soon as possible New Actions ----------- JRL process the Orion Nebular Cluster data (the 3 broadband data sets) so that a better publicity shot can be made. EGS write an article on the global calibration of the WFC survey data for the ING Spring Newsletter. MJI email JMS about the ESO reaction to the VISTA Data Dictionary document MJI ask for the VDFS schedule at the next VDMT meeting PSB distribute RIX tasks (all to be done by the end of February) MJI attempt to acquire the board disposition from JPE PSB organize meeting (after Grant Review) to sort out RIX responses MJI raise issue of observing efficiency of LAS survey at VDUC meeting JRL MJI ensure STH is informed about when the next JAC telecon will be JRL quantify cross-talk and persistence levels to MJI for VDUC meeting MJI email Simon Berry for the referee's comments on our Grant Bid MJI ask RWA about use of films and corradograph for Open Day MR join the UKIDSS consortium EGS STH arrange meeting with Kona Andrews (after Grant Review) about AstroGrid MR deployment MJI add astrogrid agenda item to meetings