30th August 2005 Hoyle committee room 11.30 - 13:05 Present: MJI, STH, RGM, DWE, MR, EGS, NAW Apologies: PSB, JRL, WJS Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Data archives update - UKIRT, WFCAM, AAO, ING 4. Review of UKIDSS meeting 5. Upcoming VDUC meeting 6. WFCAM news and JAC telecons 7. Optical processing update 8. VDFS update 9. AstroGrid liaison update 10. AOB monthly reports, hardware Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI all reports written JRL MR JRL has sorted out the connectivity issues with AAO which was holding up the development of the AAO archive WJS has checked that the Nov 2004 version of the SADT Definition Document is the latest version STH has yet to trial the test version of the SADT available for both VISTA and VST. Will contact Martin Folger to progress this - ongoing <<<< MJI circulated the quarterly plan MR has improved the look of the front page of the WFCAM raw data archive JRL has not finished sorting out local scripts for easy access to the mirrored OMP data base tables - ongoing <<<< JRL reported on the summit pipeline timing tests at the JAC telecon MR has investigated the properties of the sky calibration frames. NAW and RGM raised the issue of placing the presentations given at the SV meeting on the web. It was decided that these could be placed within the "Presentations" section of the Documentation web page. <<<< There may also be other presentations given (eg Survey Heads meeting) that may be suitable for inclusion. It was also decided that MR should also write up the investigations into the flat fields and sky frames as a document. <<<< MR has put more explanatory text on the processing progress web page. The next addition will be a Known Features page for each semester - ongoing <<<< STH has finished the 3 remaining RIXs in the ETC document PSB has checked that all the various VISTA documents are up-to-date WJS has not yet checked the VISTA template definitions - ongoing <<<< MJI raised the calibration/science frame issue at the VDMT meeting. Again the general feeling was that it would be simpler to classify the observations of the standards as calibration frames. The decision now rests with the VISTA Project Office. PSB is waiting for contacted from JPE about the status of the SADT with respect to the RIXs - ongoing <<<< EGS has made the stacking software available for specific requests EGS finished and distributed his SV document and received many comments at the SV meeting in Edinburgh (see item 4). JRL finished writing the ADASS abstract ALL have kept the .away file up-to-date (if not altogether accurate) 2. Comments on WFAU minutes There were no comments 3. Data archives update - UKIRT, WFCAM, AAO, ING UKIRT: is up-to-date. WFCAM: the raw archive is up-to-date. The transfer of the raw data to ESO has 3 nights left to do. MR is currently working on setting up a DQC archive for WFCAM. This is a long-term project. NAW mentioned SAADA as being relevant to this. AAO: JRL has sorted out the access to the mirror. Getting the rest of the archive functional will take about 2 weeks. ING: almost all the DVDs have now been read. The transfer of data via Internet has been progressing successfully for the last 2 months. It has been noticed that a number of DVDs contained repeated data, so some form of intelligent clear-out script is required to remove the duplicated data. EGS will help RWA with this. <<<< 4. Review of UKIDSS meeting The UKIDSS SV1 meeting was held at Edinburgh on 18 August and went very well. STH went through some of the actions that had been noted. It was requested that MJI produce a PDF version of the catalogue parameters document. <<<< GIF versions of the PS plots on the WFCAM Reduction Progress pages have now been made. The catalogue generator has been updated to produce more magnitudes (Petrosian, Kron, Hall). Also error estimates have been added. The largest aperture used have now been shrunk so that the largest is now only 24" diameter. The previous largest, 64" diameter, was bigger than the default background tracking scale and therefore pointless. The next SV meeting will be held on Wednesday 21 September in Cambridge. On the preceding Tuesday (20th) Cambridge will also host a WFCAM calibration meeting. MJI noted that next Tuesday (6th September) there will be a VDUC meeting in Cambridge and that as many as possible should be around in order to answer questions if any arise. STH said that his photometry document should be out by the 6th. EGS mentioned one of the issues raised at the SV meeting. He had done an investigation into the sensitivity of stacked only versus stacked interleaved data and found that the stacked data was more sensitive. One reason for this is that the detection algorithm is not currently tuned to work with large hedgehog-shaped PSFs. 5. Upcoming VDUC meeting In preparation for next week's meeting, MJI and STH are preparing a document which will describe the plan for UK VISTA data reductions. This will not be fully detailed, but will describe what documents will be prepared for the UK review (to be held next year). This document will also contain the new VDFS deliverables schedule. STH will distribute this document for comment by tomorrow. <<<< No agenda has been distributed yet, but MJI and NCH will be giving presentations summarising progress since the last review. 6. WFCAM news and JAC telecons Two JAC telecons have been held since the last meeting (27 July and 16 August). The main items discussed were how far the requirements of the summit pipeline have been met, particularly with respect to its speed. WFCAM is currently on the telescope and working. An automated guidestar acquisition system is now in place. Fine tuning of the optics has been carried out to sort out tilt etc. Images were found to be 0.65" on all chips (Gemini reported 0.5" images in V on the same night) on the 1st night of on-sky tests. The field lens has been cleaned so that the worst of the scattered light/ thermal emission problems (the "crud") has been eliminated. MJI reported that he measured the intrapixel capacitance (after RGMs comment regarding this at the last meeting) for WFCAM (and also VISTA). The charge coupling due to this effect causes a modest correlation beween stored charge on any pixel and its immediated neighbours. The primary consequence of this is that the noise at the pixel level is correlated and this in turn leads to a measured chi^2 that is smaller than it would be for random (photon) noise, a factor of 1.2 for WFCAM. In turn this leads to an overestimate of the gain (e-/ADU) and hence the sensitivity. This also has implications for the parameter errors estimated from PST fitting, but only at the 10% level for WFCAM. It is quite likely that other problems in estimating realistic errors will be at least as large. Reprocessing has been carried out on all data affected by the pipeline software stacking bug. Also all the SV data up to and including 19th April (SV1) has been reprocessed with the new catalogue generator in order to calculate the new parameters, errors etc.. We were all asked to examine this new data for problems prior to releasing it and prior to finishing off the rest of the 05A data catalogue (re)generation <<<< A prototype crosstalk removing algorithm has been written by MJI, and is in the middle of consumer testing. At this stage it is unclear if it is worth reprocessing all the 05A data again to incorporate this. MJI, after disussions with NCH, recommended using it in anger on 05B data and then re-assessing the situation re: 05A data further downstream. The main reasoning here being to limit the long-term number of available reprocessed versions of the same data. Some redesigning of the UKIDSS WFCAM survey MSBs has been done to help improve the observing efficiency whilst maintaining the science return. The primary result from this should be a significant reduction in the nightly raw data rate. 7. Optical processing update EGS said that he was dealing with a data request from Caroline van Breukelen to process INT WFC data covering one of the WFCAM survey areas. CFH MegaCam and Subaru optical imaging data is also being processed. 8. VDFS update No PSB, so no VDFS update. 9. AstroGrid liaison update Nothing to report. 10. AOB monthly reports, hardware MJI said that two new disc servers (8 TBytes each) have been ordered. A new rack will also be ordered shortly to locate some of the disk server kit more appropriately. NAW raised the issue of whether CASU will be involved with an interface/ archive for AAOmega. Raw data yes, processed data probably online at the AAO, but MJI will confirm at the next AAT Board meeting. <<<< RGM asked what the next VST milestones would be. MJI said that the submission of revised public survey proposals will be due by about the end of September. The proposals will then be reviewed by the PSP for compliance with the PSP directions and agreements. The PSP Chair will finally report these findings to the OPC in November. Continuing Actions ------------------ STH drive test version of the SADT available for both VISTA and VST (contact Martin Folger) JRL finish sorting out scripts for access to the summit comments database and make available MR further enhance the processing progress web page WJS check that VISTA template definitions are sensible PSB wait for response from JPE regarding the status of the SADT with respect to the RIXs New Actions ----------- MR produce or update documents covering the presentations given at the EGS SV meeting and place on web pages MJI STH ALL place other suitable presentations in "Presentations" section of documentation web page. MR write up the flat fields and sky frames investigations as a document EGS write a clear-out script to remove the duplicated data from the ING archive in consultation with RWA MJI produce a PDF version of the catalogue parameters document STH distribute VDUC document ALL comment on above VDUC document ALL think of and carry out tests on the new catalogue parameters data MJI confirm AAO plans for AAOmega data