CASU meeting Wednesday June 22nd 11:30-12:50 CASU meeting area. Present: MJI, AKY, JRL, EGS, SC Apologies: NAW, JPE, RGM, MR, JCR, STH Agenda: 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Hardware update 4. Meetings and telecons 5. Data archives update 6. Optical/NIR processing 7. WFCAM update 8. VISTA update 9. AOB Minutes ======= 1. Actions from the last meeting -------------------------------- AKY - is still comparing Henry's deep stack with our equivalent Joy <<<< and will hand over to McCracken to finish AKY - has finished off the flat-field properties investigations and written the report and is just about to reveal its location <<<< JRL - continues to investigate "rolling" master linearity corrections <<<< and will include "average" channels too All - thought about propagating pawprint QC provenance info to tile headers as part of v1.2 upgrades. Definitely best implemented at the grouting stage. JRL created an example and after some iteration here it is PAWMAGZP= '23.659 23.657 23.656 23.649 23.649 23.654 ' / Median pawprint MAGZPT PAWELLPT= '0.057 0.032 0.046 0.050 0.034 0.043 ' / Median pawprint ELLIPTIC PAWSEENG= '2.201 2.055 2.192 2.303 2.190 1.965 ' / [arcsec] Median paw SEEING must have been rubbish seeing that one SC - progress slowly ongoing with Ubuntu/Debian upgrade for Blades <<<< EGS - checked how often the WCS convergence problem seems to have occured for MJI VISTA and WFCAM by comparing # of matched stds etc.. for each detector Ongoing for VISTA VVV, but for WFCAM s'done. <<<< EGS - produced zpts for about a week of VISTA data post-re-aluminising, AKY not quite enough to accurately nail the differences -v- silvered yet MOST - made a valiant attempt to consume beer at said Cambridge Festival MJI - scrummed down and made a good start to sorting out some of the EGS not-quite-so-ancient problems with the ING archive, leaving just the JRL modestly-ancient 1999/2000 to mull over <<<< JRL - politely failed to acquire any VST data but an alternative cunning plan involving rearranging the following words - filter continuum Halpha assess versus filter - has since surfaced MJI - implemented the fixes to those GPS WFCAM fields requiring it AKY - sent around the ELT assumptions about aluminised mirror properties versus wavelength, which turned out be slightly more sampled than the ancient ones used for the Hewett et al. WFCAM predictions, but agreed very well MJI - went through the ESO gripes and JRL even badgered them at the JRL aforementioned Review meeting, but to no avail. ESO will go ahead EGS and confuse users by altering sacrosanct keywords JRL - could only conclude that the previously fixed broken catalogues AKY made an unexpected return one dark night and guarantee (its going EGS to be potentially expensive) it will not happen again. The relevant PI's, if any, still need contacting <<<< MJI - still needs to sort out his APM catalogue server binaries <<<< 2. Comments on WFAU Minutes --------------------------- They seem to be getting less frequent ...... and briefer. 3. Hardware Update ------------------ Nothing has still been bought / broken / fixed / improved etc... apart from apm44 having a panic attack aka NSFd - well you would wouldn't you ? 4. Meetings and Telecons ------------------------ Downgoing: 31/05/11: the moving VMC Skypecon was missed altogether 06/06/11: JRL attended the "VISTA Survey Operations Review" at ESO on June 6th and didn't mention --- --- -- - --- neither was he very enlightened or encumbered with examples of VST data. We wonder what the SV programme will be for VST. 08/06/11: the VISTA IOT telecon passed without anything of note other than first-pass zero-points from CASU indicating not too different to predictions, but really need more data to be sure. EGS will find out if the EVALSO test transfers will recommence since getting more data more quickly would be useful here <<<< Upcoming: 27/06/11: the next VMC skypecon - will probably be missed too 18/07/11: the Galactic Plane Survey meeting takes place at U. Herts. It runs for a week progressing from NIR to optical. MJI and STH and NAW appear to be signed up for talks. 5. Data archives update ----------------------- Other than the problems with ancient ING data, everbody is updating themselves in a timely fashion. 6. Optical/NIR processing ------------------------- The 11A Kepler and UVEX programmes on the INT WFC are in full swing and being processed shortly after each run is completed. VST is in the SMP revamp phase with EGS dealing with VPHAS+ requests and MJI with ATLAS. At some point in the not too distant future the VPHAS+ Halpha filter will need commissioning and testing adjunct to the r filter. We hope to get access to that data. The Gaia-ESO spectroscopic survey campaign is gearing up with SMPs due shortly and the usual suspects doing the processing and archiving. Discussions about data formats have already begun. The first observing runs start January 2012. 7. WFCAM update --------------- Receipt and ingest of raw data has been going smoothly. There has been somewhat less data of late due to several nights of mirror oscillations and the occasional sticking J filter paddle. The former seems to have been fixed and the latter will be investigated further during the upcoming standdown beginning 27th June. <<<< Processing is up to date and on track, which is a good job because there have been a lot of recent requests for early access to processed data. Assorted GPS reprocessing in readiness for GPS-DR8 is ongoing including: nebulising - done; further refining some frames with imperfect astrometry - done; and photometric recalibration for all? GPS frames - still BD but will enable better zp solutions in high extinction regions and also better aperture corrections in these crowded fields. <<<< The long-stalled H-band UDS reprocessing for 05B-07B is next on the hit list for July <<<< 8.VISTA update -------------- VISTA restarted data taking on 6th May and we now have about a month of data since the restart, but not a vast choice of twilight flats. Processing is up to date and some of the more benign v1.2 upgrades (see below) are already in place in the newly processed data, though still being shaken and stirred prior to actual release. JRL has been working ever more on improvements to the VIDEO Skymaking Saga and we now have what MJI thought we had already, "half-tile" minus sky as well as pawsky minus sky, not the snappiest of names. A suitably large tranche of VIDEO data is being reprocessed for final assessment before the remainder is rendered thus. mr. complained about a few missing VMC tiles and after a bit of investigation this was discovered to be due to over-culling of not so great pawprint stacks. The policy of allowing the end-user to make this decision was re-emphasised and the relevant slightly dodgy (elliptical in this case) stacks have now been combined to make tiles and released to mr. To re-iterate, if 6 pawprint stacks make it out of the first stage of the pipeline then tile products will always be made irrespective of quality. The v1.2 upgrades so far ------------------------ implementing an acceptable solution to paw/half-tile skymask viz-a-viz deep stacking, this will require reprocessing all v1.1. VIDEO data recording the potential no. of astrometric standards in each image footprint in NUMSTDS to aid in diagnosing possible astrometric solution faux pas extending new illumination correction tables by a column either end tiles will now include brief QC summary information from the pawprints to ease in diagnosing suspect data removing the "tmp/" bit of provenance keywords and adding keyword/value noting that the tile catalogue was generated from nebulised images with parameters used specified therein RADECSYS keywords - primary staying same i.e. FK5 since it relates to the telescope pointing. Adding this keyword to the SHDUs and setting it to have value ICRS adding a "GROUTED" keyword to grouted tile catalogues the only tricky one which is being trialled are "minor" tweaks to zeropoint estimation particularly relevant in regions of high extinction. At some point, after yet more tests, this will require a re-run of all the tile catalogues with the latest photometric calibration updates. These also include more accurate footprint selection and better rejection of saturated standards. and one dropped "improvement" there will be no How-To use magzpt information in the header, its: a.) too easy if you stick to a VISTA system; b.) too complicated to explain all the aperture and field distortion corrections needed as well; and c.) will be incorrect after ESO muck up the headers in their version. 9. CASUHELPSs ------------- Too many b'queries this month but there was one real corker, unfortunately we can't tell you what it was ! 10. AOB ------- MJI offloaded a Usersrtools query to CASUrtools having spent many years going nowhere with this particular one. He wishes JRL well. MJI reminded the paper writers of the IoA's committment to the symplectic software for tracking publications. There was some grumbling about what publications ? He also noted that as JCR is leaving end of July we need to organise a suitable visit to a local hostelry, or get Jenny to bring in a barrel. Continuing Actions: ------------------- AKY - compare Henry's deep stack with our equivalent, or pass it on AKY - let us know where the report is ...... quick JRL - investigate benefits of a "rolling" master linearity correction or even an average channel one SC - progress Ubuntu/Debian upgrade for Blades EGS - finish checking how often the WCS convergence problem occurs for VISTA by comparing # of matched stds for each detector etc .... MJ - modestly ancient INGARCH problems - que pasa entonces ? JRL EGS EGS - contact any PIs who directly transferred bust catalogues (or lingerie for that matter) MJI - sort out the goddam APM catalogue binaries New Actions: ------------ EGS - enquire politely if EVALSO transfers to Cambridge will resume MJI - find out how long the standdown for WFCAM is for MJI - progress the GPS photometric recalibration ........ MJI - ..... and the long-stalled H-band UDS reprocessing