10 September 2003 Present: MJI, JRL, PSB, DWE, JMI Apologies: STH Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Feedback from monthly Management Committee Meeting 4. Interim report from DWE on tests on interleaving and interpolation 5. Comments on the VISTA IR detector test procedure document /home/wfcam/public_html/internal/vdfsdocs/TestProcedure_020903.pdf 6. Preparation for camera design review meeting 7. AOB: (in)visibility of CASU web pages on new IoA web site Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting STH no progress with Sandy Legget's data, ongoing <<<< MJI the pipeline milestones tasks and dates will be converted to html JRL and future updates will be done on the web. <<<< MJI is awaiting AA's return from holiday (re. UKIDSS Survey Manager) <<<< MJI is updating Section 2. of DFS user requirements document. This needs to be finished before the Camera Design Review (next week). <<<< JMI comments were sent to JMI about his three reports ALL sent monthly reports to STH MJI wrote intro for difference imaging report STH needs to write a context intro for simulation report <<<< JMI incorporated feedback into his documents and linked them from public web page. DWE asked JMI for his comments regarding HTML as a format for documentation and he strongly advised against it if the document requires a lot of figure numbering. Latex-based documents are a suitable alternative. If web documents are required latex2html or tth can be used. STH it was unknown whether Paul Hirst or Andy Adamson had been emailed concerning the the setting up of the photometric standards fields within the characterization plan. Additionally DWE should email STH with his additions so that these can be put forward at the same time. <<<< PSB raised the issue of photometric standards for VISTA. STH should extend the number of fields that he has established for WFCAM to the south for use by VISTA so that PSB can incorporate within his calibration plan document <<<< JRL sent comments to PSB about the FITS headers document. There was some further discussion and clarification regarding some of these points. ALL various people had read the ESO documents and sent comments to PSB 2. Comments on WFAU minutes No new minutes were available since the previous CASU meeting, so there were no comments. 3. Feedback from monthly Management Committee Meeting The next meeting will be 1 October. The end of quarter reports need to be in before this (before 26th September to give STH time to absorb them). All to review our Q3 deliverables in order to maximize our completions. <<<< MJI pointed out that this will be an important meeting since it comes shortly before the Oversight Committee's next review (10 October?) which is pertinent for the next release of cash and the e-science II bid. One of the requests from the MCM was that the documentation web page should have release and revised dates next to each entry. DWE said that he would do this. <<<< 4. Interim report from DWE on tests on interleaving and interpolation DWE showed some plots from his recent work on interleaving and interpolation. Astrometric and photometric error plots for various scenarios involving interleaving were shown. The 4 cases were: no interleaving, interleaving (2x2) with idealized seeing, realistic seeing, and bad seeing (these all refer to the stability of the seeing). At the bright end, interleaving in all cases produces astrometry twice as accurate as that with no interleaving. For these tests for bright objects 2x2 interleaving gives coordinates accurate to about 15 mas, while the non-interleaved data limits at around 30 mas. At the faint end no difference is seen due to the errors being dominated by Poisson noise. The significant finding is that the interleaving results are broadly similar even if the seeing is not stable ie. interleaving works in poor conditions (using weighted centroiding). The photometric errors were the same in all 4 cases. This is mainly due to the pixels acting like light buckets and negligible changes in overall PSF scale. Examples of interleaved images were shown. The bad seeing case showed the expected "hedgehog" features, which would cause grief for most PSF fitting techniques. A demonstration was also shown on how useful interleaving (3x3) might be at showing additional detail. It was suggested that an equivalent plot for 2x2 also be carried out and posted on the web pages. <<<< MJI suggested looking at the 2MASS web pages for more information on "interleaving" results. <<<< More studies and a report on all this will be written shortly. <<<< Emanuel Bertin has supplied a beta release of SWarp (v2.0) which has been installed on cmt05. This should be faster code. Initial tests were mixed. In general, SWarp has been tamed and shifts and rotations can be made as required. This will be used in the testing of various aspects of interpolation. 5. Comments on the VISTA IR detector test procedure document /home/wfcam/public_html/internal/vdfsdocs/TestProcedure_020903.pdf MJI said that feedback was required on the above document by the end of the week. <<<< The following were comments regarding the document that were raised during the meeting: i No intrapixel sensitivity tests. ii Unclear whether there where any reset anomaly tests. iii It was felt that the document just listed a set of things to measure with no suggestions on what to do if any of these parameters were problematic. iv A cross-reference is required to the requirements. It was stressed that there was a need for doing these tests in the laboratory. Carrying them out on the telescope was felt to be unacceptable. Concern was expressed about the possibility that laboratory tests like these could be cancelled in order to save money. 6. Preparation for camera design review meeting PSB will attend this meeting for all 3 days while MJI and JRL will attend for most of Thursday and Friday. During this time it is expected that the CASU team will give about a 1 hour presentation. Jim Emerson will also give an introductory overview talk. There was some uncertainty regarding the details of this meeting. PSB said that he would sort out the accommodation requirements and look into the agenda and where within RAL the meeting would be held. <<<< 7. AOB: (in)visibility of CASU web pages on new IoA web site CASU seems to have dropped off the radar with the new web site. DWE will email Andy Batey to enhance CASU's web presence. <<<< It was noted that the WFS progress web pages have not been correctly updated for some time. Since this is regarded as a proto-WFCAM pipeline progress monitoring system, STH needs to update the scripts. <<<< There were a number of requests for an overview of the VISTA IR camera design. PSB said that he has seen a web page containing this information. He said that he would locate the page and pass on the information. <<<< Hardware news: 2 desktops (JRL and STH) plus HP DDS5 (72) have been ordered, (delivered and tested in the latter case) as well as an Overland 17 slot LT02 tape drive system. It is now time to spec. and order the front-end data server PC for the LTO tape drive et al. <<<< [Note added after meeting: further successful compatibility tests between different LTO-I and -II systems were carried out on our behalf by our supplier.] There is no news regarding our contracts - 5 months 1 week late and counting... Continuing Actions ------------------ STH check Sandy Legget's data and (probably) send in a request for more data. JMI to update and convert pipeline milestones tasks and dates document MJI to HTML. JRL MJI await reply from AA concerning the UKIDSS Survey Manager appointment on Hawaii. MJI continue updating Section 2. of DFS user requirements document. This needs to be finished by the Camera Design Review (next week). STH write context intro for simulation report STH email Paul Hirst or Andy Adamson concerning the setting up of the photometric standards fields within the characterization plan. New Actions ----------- DWE email STH with his additions to the characterization plan so that these could be suggested at the same time as the above. STH extend the number of fields that he has established for WFCAM to the south for use by VISTA. DWE alter the documentation web page so that there are release and revised dates next to each entry. DWE do equivalent 2x2 interleaving plots cf. 3x3 demonstration and place results on web DWE to investigate the 2MASS web pages for examples of "interleaving" efficacy DWE write report on interleaving work MJI provide feedback on VISTA IR detector test procedure document by the JRL end of the week. PSB PSB sort out the accommodation, agenda and exact location for CDR meeting at RAL DWE email Andy Batey to request a link to CASU from the research page of the IoA web site STH update the prototype pipeline progress (WFS) scripts and web pages JMI PSB locate the web page containing the overview of the VISTA IR camera design and pass on the information PSB spec and order a rack-mountable data server PC to go with the recently MJI ordered LT02 tape drive unit