CASU meeting Wednesday 29th May 11:30-13:00 APM Present: MJI, AKY, STH, JRL, GMX, JPE Apologies: MR, EGS, NAW, RGM, CGF, SC Agenda: 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Hardware update 4. Meetings and telecons 5. Data archives update 6. WFCAM update 7. VISTA update 8. VST update 9. Spectroscopic stuff 10. ESO in-kind stuff 11. AOB/news 1. Actions from last meeting ----------------------------- STH - all the information pertaining to the "radial" extent of diffraction spikes is available but still needs putting on the web pages <<<< STH - have produced all the band-merged files for the VVV Bulge and Disk MJI fields which will be used to trawl for suitable lowish extinction regions to compute/corroborate the Z- and Y-band offsets - ongoing <<<< JRL - are making slow but steady progress in replacing apm5 Sybase server <<<< EGS MJI - the VST dome flats -v- twilight flats comparison est bien stalled <<<< SC - asymmetries in NFS push-v-pull transfers remain an engima wrapped in a puzzle and stored in a locked sub-basement filing cabinet AKY - is progressing VISTA raw data offline backups <<<< EGS - the tape copying for VVV was resurrected and lobbed out of the door MJI - an off-line meeting to discuss progress on all papers occured CGF - review of general technical pages contents is ongoing <<<< EGS - produced some plots of delRA delDec for VST which did indeed show a bunch of jumps JRL - did magic fitsio_vst_fix into CASUtools as part of the slog to make illumination correction available off-site, what about the tables <<<< has he carried out his threat to make them FITS tables ? EGS - can we retire apm15 yet? <<<< MR JRL - has the imcore_list radian-v-degree bug been put to rest ? <<<< JRL - a pathological "hole" in the 2MASS catalogue around a well-known star caused the weird stacking error when processing 20130317 GMX - is still investigating non-linearity and gain measures for HAWKI <<<< STH - sent? an example set of FITS headers/info location to Warwick folk <<<< 2. WFAU minutes --------------- The curiosity about the 150TB NAS server box was suitably sated, thanks Mark. 3. Hardware update (and software) ------------------ There is now a fair bit of kit without labels on so SC was tasked with acquiring the labelling dooberry and exercising her artistic talent. <<<< A quick trawl of machines without fibre chanel HBA cards revealed apm49 was feeling left out so SC was tasked with ordering another card. <<<< MJI suggested making the changes that happened in recent updates in casutools more readily visible on the web pages to save folk downloading unnecessarily. <<<< The donation of the LT04 library unit went smoothly apart from the few usual access issues that were quickly resolved. EGS stumbled over an interesting gotcha, PSB had set a password to access the library unit, good job it was his DoB otherwise we would still be posting in tapes one by one through the mail slot. There still remain the HOWTO issues with using imcore_list and other software efficiently [headers, classification etc...] - ideas on a postcard please. Desktop hardware for GMX and CGF finally arrived and is being used with suitable vigour. 4. Meetings and telecons ------------------------- The VMC monthly telecon was on May 23rd, so MJI sent in a report as he and NAW were at a WEAVE engineering meeting nr. Schiphol. There was a comment about magnitude differences of 3-4% between VMC data releases of 20110909 and more recent ones, 20111128 and 20130304 but it was not clear where this came from. The UK part of WEAVE will be reviewed at a PPRP meeting on 3rd July. CASU's role is the usual data management in Cambridge plus delivery of a quick-look processing pipeline to run at the WHT. There was a VISTA IOT on 28th May at which JRL raised the issue of the (not the) filter shifts (holes) and JPE the latest ZP trend measures. However, discussion of OB observing efficiency soaked up most the will power. STH noted the recent CHEOPS meetings/telecons he has been attending and the need to remeber we are delivering a quick-look pipeline for the many KB of data that will be processed. 5. Data archives update - AAT, ING, WFCAM, UKIRT, VISTA ------------------------ All continue to run smoothly and indeed all is otherwise quiet on the UVEX/IPHAS processing front since MJI has no time available until exam season is over. 6. WFCAM update ---------------- All running smoothly though a bit of a backlog of official releases is beginning to build up. The usual culprits requested early access to their data which was therefore made so. 7. VISTA update ---------------- JRL tracked down and fixed some really obscure glitch in the post-processing macros that caused a minor delay in post-processing operations but otherwise VISTA raw data acquisition, processing and releases are on track. As noted earlier the LTO4 tapes of v1.3 for the VVV'ers has happened and the tapes have been dispatched. CGF with a bit of input from MJI has been investigating all of the VVV multiband photometry and tracking down tiles with problems. This is still ongoing but the bottom line is that v1.3 fixes many of the earlier issues. MJI commented that with the current philosophy of fixing the odd recalcitrant VISTA product rather than doing bulk reprocessing we need a simple update procedure. As expected there are still one or two VVV tiles turning up that would benefit from a photometry update. It looks like there are very few but we need a procedure (script) to deal with them mainly due to all the bookkeeping requirements. An good example of this is provided by v20100422_01103_st_tl_cat.fits which shows a fair old ZP variation in the pawprints namely: PAWMAGZP= '23.804 23.728 23.687 23.774 23.589 23.603 ' / Median paw MAGZPT but as this happened on an otherwise photometric night it was a good sign that this one would benefit from recalibrating the pawprints and then regrouting the tile catalogue to fix the problems. The new zpt's would be 23.784 23.768 23.796 23.819 23.778 23.802; the change is due to a few small improvements in the photometry programme, done since the start of the v1.3 upgrade, to more consistently cope with complex extinction variations over the field. The fixing sequence needs to be something along the lines of: 1. update the pawprint zpts by running fitsio_photom_vircam (now v1.3) 2. put in the monthly detector-level offsets 3. regrout the tile catalogue 4. run fitsio_photom_vircam on the tile catalogue 5. put back the original nightly zpt info to all updated catalogues 6. update all the relevant image zpts 7. flag these files as having been updated in the header (version increment ?) 8. reingest to database There is a slow but consistent downward trend in the VISTA ZPTs and the updated plot is now on the technical pages. One user requested to download ALL the VIDEO data several times 'cos he/she was an impatient *&^**. Unsurprisingly this clogged up the queue => could do with a fix to trap this sort of thing. 8. VST update -------------- Receipt of raw data ingest and processing are all on track. April data is ready for release. There is not much May data so computing reliable illumination corrections may be a bit more challenging than usual. The brief synopsis received about VST baffling experiments is reproduced below aka .... "The tests which were carried out the end of March and the respective data taken were analysed and several possible improvements to the baffling have been identified. With some temporary baffles installed, stray light features in short exposure images were completely eliminated. As far as I know common action is taken by the engineering departments in Paranal and Garching, but I don't know about any precise dates or timescales. Also blackening of some telescope parts is under discussion." A slight oddity turned up during ESO-end checks of VST Phase 3 deliveries whereby two different CASU files had the same archive filename e.g. o20120615_00137.fit and 20120615/o20120615_00138.fit both have ARCFILE = 'OMEGA.2012-06-16T04:01:15.115.fits' / Archive File Name. That means that the stack file o20120615_00136_st.fit is formed by three dithers instead of two, and two of them the same one: PROV0000= 'o20120615_00136_st.fit[1]: formed from Nearest neighbour of:' PROV0001= 'o20120615_00136.fit[1]' / Card # 1 PROV0002= 'o20120615_00137.fit[1]' / Card # 2 PROV0003= 'o20120615_00138.fit[1]' / Card # 3 This turned out to be part of an interesting screwup due to having both dummy and fits files of the same name in the raw directory causing the CASU renaming script to get a tad confused. It turns out this was a one off night where so many files had the wrong CASU names that it was simplest to preprocess the entire night - which duly happened. After fixing this one, the VST Phase3 releases for ATLAS and VPHAS have been ticked off despite several ESO-end interruptions to the service. As requested by the odd user, the VST DQC 5-sigma limits now reported min max and med for various parameters. The APASS DR7 release was acquired and installed but has not yet been used in anger. 9. Spectroscopic stuff ----------------------- Gaia-ESO, WEAVE, 4MOST, MOONS [see next meeting minutes] 10. ESO in-kind stuff --------------------- [see next meeting minutes] 11. AOB ------- JRL's wandering minstrels are giving a concert in Hardwick on 8th June from 7.30pm, all were encouraged to attend. Continuing actions ------------------ STH - impart information regarding the radial extent of VISTA diffraction spikes -> web pages STH - compute the ZP offsets for the VISTA calibration for z-band and cf. with MJI cunning use of two-colour diagrams in Sgr and Bulge regions JRL - keep reporting on further progress with retiring our apm5 Sybase server EGS MJI - are the VST dome flats that stable and how do they cf. to twilights AKY - keep applying some TLC to the VISTA raw data tape backups CGF - review and update as needed general technical pages contents JRL - what happended about fitsio_vst_fix illumcor tables ? MR - figure out how to progress retiring apm15 EGS JRL - multiply RA Dec columns produced by imcore_list by atan(1.0)/45.0 CGF - investigate what caused the stacking error for night of 20130317 JRL GMX - investigating non-linearity and gain measures for HAWKI STH - FITS headers and NGTS bods at Warwick New actions ----------- SC - dig out the labeller and make it earn its keep SC - order another HBA card for apm49 this time CGF - web pages and visibility of CASUrtools software udpates