28 January 2004 Observatory meeting room 10.00 - 12.30 Present: MJI, JRL, PSB, DWE, STH, RGM (until 11am) Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Report from the last VDMT meeting 4. STH's report on meeting with SJW and MMC 5. Update on JAC telecons; items for tonight's one 6. PPRP meeting on the 4th February 7. Progress with ISAAC reductions 8. Items for inclusion/discussion for monthly report 9. AOB Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting STH is continuing to check the photometric standards list for contamination by bright stars - ongoing <<<< STH the numbering of documents has been transfered to DWE. [This item was discussed outside of the main meeting] JRL has finished the reduction of the UFTI service data (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/vdfs/docs/reports/ufti_service/) STH has checked to see if more UFTI service data was available (none). JRL was of the opinion that not much more could be gained from the service data. [MJI and JRL confirmed with JAC that no more UFTI service data for these tests was planned and agreed to sign this one off] STH checking the spatial systematics in the UFTI standards data and new test data is an ongoing task. <<<< MJI raised the issue of the VDFS Science and User Requirements document at the VDMT meeting. WJS is currently working on this with PSB. JRL has finished the report on the results of comparisons between UFTI data processed using Cambridge pipelines and using the normal JAC pipeline (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/vdfs/docs/reports/pipeline_tests/) JRL a draft of WFCAM FITS header and dummy data will be ready by the end of MJI the week in order to send to Benoit and Adam. JRL said that the delay was in producing the explanation of the FITS header terms. MJI suggested sending the current example(s) and then asking if futher information was required <<<< MJI the WFAU external network tests took place and gave satisfactory results so no action needed MJI enquired via JAC whether the WFCAM camera team have dummy data files with all the SDF/FITS headers packets in place to enable full end-to-end tests of the VDFS. Malcolm Stewart volunteered, at the VDMT, to try and get suitable test data direct from the ATC. To cut a long story short, CASU are getting this data via the JAC and MJI will remind AA about this during tonight's telecon. <<<< MJI raised concerns about commissioning plans for VISTA and VDFS at upcoming VDMT meeting. However, further discussion of this was postponed due to more pressing matters and flagged for later consideration. MJI together with JAC have finished the draft of the MSB design guidelines JRL document and forwarded it to SJW, NCH (and AA, PH) on 8th January for comments JRL supplied further deliverables information to STH DWE clarified deliverables of Section 16 with STH MJI finished the quarterly report along with next quarter's deliverables and STH summary for the quarter, in time for the VDMT meeting. JRL are in the middle of writing a short document setting out the PSB pros and cons of CPL/QFITS compared to using CASU software modules + CFITSIO - ongoing <<<< 2. Comments on WFAU minutes It was noted that 10 Mbytes/s transfer rate had been reported and that all was quiet in the Hobbyar House. 3. Report from the last VDMT meeting The meeting held on the 9th January discussed the reports presented on the previous quarter mainly foccussing on the issue of V1 deliverables. The afternoon part of the meeting included NAW and was used to discuss the preparation of the budget and content for submission of the next VEGA bid. The main change in the VDFS part of the VEGA bid was that VDFS operations have been taken out of the budget and will have to be bid for separately. 3 years of development money was asked for - ~3 posts in Cambridge and ~3 in Edinburgh, with ~2 additional posts for GAIA development. There is a natural ramping element for VDFS within this funding, since it covers the period October 2004 to September 2007, ie. almost to one year after VISTA commissioning is due to begin and when most pipeline (and science archive) development should have finished. This funding envelope overlaps our current grant timeline of October 2003 to September 2006. RGM noted that the actions from the January VDMT meeting hadn't been posted at the time of writing - there are no minutes of these meetings. 4. STH's report on meeting with SJW and MMC STH reported on the short meeting held at Imperial on 20th January with Steve Warren and Mark Casali. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the current status of the engineering tests, in particular the proposed pre-commissioning (hardware) lab tests, and to also discuss the provisional commissioning plan. MJI asked if the tests (thermal cycling) carried out around Christmas had been successful, STH was unsure. It was also unclear whether the real cryostat had been used for the thermal cycling tests or a test cryostat. MJI will ask AA at tonight's telecon. <<<< MMC is looking into the best way of getting any test data to us. Via FTP, or the web (better), would be fine. The plan for the lab tests is available on our internal web pages "Final_Detector_Testing.pdf", the commissioning plan is "Commisioning_on_telescope_draft.pdf" and there is also the earlier report (Dec 2002) "Science_array_tests.pdf". The WFCAM team will also look into the possibility of carrying out some sort of flat-field tests in the lab. It was pointed out that the purpose of these would be mainly to look into effects due to persistence, reset anomaly, dark stability etc... MJI noted that these would be equivalent to daytime flats and could additionally be used for the same sort of checks, eg. bad pixels, linearity, pixel-to-pixel sensitivity. STH reported there was also some discussion regarding the trade-off between microstepping and dithering since I/O, bad pixel propagation and timing issues exist. There was then some general discussion regarding the laboratory and commissioning tests. MJI said that he would clarify with MMC that the data from the lab tests do not need to have the full header packets on them. He would also confirm that they would be FITS and not SDF files. <<<< For the astrometric fields needed for the commissioning tests MJI pointed out that there was no need for special fields. Anywhere close to the Galactic plane would have enough stars, and 2MASS or the photographic astrometric surveys, could be used as astrometric standard catalogues. The current plan seems to be that the camera will be delivered on 1st June which will be followed by 8 weeks of instrument commissioning. Thus the earliest that the science data commissioning can be done is August. RGM asked if there had been any response from SJW regarding JRL's UFTI reductions. JRL said that there had been none and that he had sent the web location of his reports to him on 21st January. RGM also asked if there had been any response from SJW regarding the MSB document that MJI/JRL had sent on 8th January. There had been none so far. RGM noted that The HAWK-I project was a "data processing opportunity" (see http://www.eso.org/~amoor/HAWK-Iscience.pdf). This is an 4 detector IR mosaic that will go on the VLT and has a 2-3 year timescale. 5. Update on JAC telecons; items for tonight's one The last telecon (6th January) mainly dealt with MSB design and was reported in the previous minutes. After some discussion a shortlist of questions/topics to be discussed at tonight's telecon was arrived at, including: * getting an sdf file complete with ALL header packets for end-to-end tests * news update about the progress of the latest detector engineering tests * clarify the issues and requirements for dome flats * find out if any more UFTI service data is forthcoming, JRL reiterated that there was probably not much more that could be done. A possible exception might be acquiring series of sunrise flats, particularly in J. * discuss provisional timescales and CASU personnel needed to be at JAC during commissioning * ask about progress in filling CSV job and procedure for next stage 6. PPRP meeting on the 4th February MJI said that this meeting will review the 2nd round VEGA bid (along with 2 other bids, ATLAS and SDO). This will be on the 4th February at the IoA and last all day. It will be a mixture of interleaved public presentations followed by closed panel sessions. The VEGA presentation has been allocated 1 hour - 15 min for general overview inc. GAIA, 5 min management overview, 15 min pipeline, 15 min archive, 10 min questions. The bid submitted can be found under the internal web pages in management/pprp_feb2004/VEGA-jan04-double.pdf MJI/STH proposed that the next VDMT meeting be also held on the 4th in the afternoon. Most of the needed persons would be here and not needed for the closed sessions. This was agreed while the meeting was in progress (the wonders of a wireless connection! and STH got all the credit!). STH needs to finalise 1) an overview GANTT chart 2) a detailed GANTT chart 3) a work-package spreadsheet <<<< These have to be finished by Friday and copies made for handing out at the PPRP meeting. JRL needs to produce copies of his UFTI reports also for handing out at the PPRP meeting. <<<< 7. Progress with ISAAC reductions JRL said that this has been done. Reduced frames and catalogues are available. A small number of frames are however still missing. He will inform STH which ones are missing and STH will acquire the data. <<<< The individual dither stacks from the OBs show interesting low level horizontal defects due to bright field stars, along with what appear to be features arising from reflections within the telescope/dome. Labbe et al. did row-by-row filtering to remove the first type of artefacts, and 2D spline surface fitting on individual frames in OBs to remove the second type of problem, this post-hoc processing does produce "good looking" images but also removes any real features on several scales. MJI is investigating stacking the whole lot and will report on this at the next meeting. <<<< STH said that he will get FIRES reduced data in order to compare. <<<< STH was also asked to calibrate our data (probably using NICMOS) or the Labbe et al. published photometry if all else fails <<<< It was generally felt that a report by JRL/MJI on this work was needed (even possibly a paper). <<<< MJI asked about what sort of results are obtained if the order of sky subtraction and flat-fielding are swapped around (to enable better object masking/rejection). JRL said that he would do some tests on this using a subset of the data. <<<< 8. Items for inclusion/discussion for monthly report PSB reported on progress of the VDFS ESO deliverables. PSB (and MJI) noted that WJS has started to look at and contribute to the VDFS science/user requirements document and that he has also been looking into interpolation techniques. It was felt that WJS should be (re)invited to these meetings. <<<< PSB now has a personal account on the HP ESO WorkStation at ATC. The immediate advantage is that the environment is set up to use the tools such as ctooTxt2Dic for building DIDs and to get access to ESO's CMM (kind of CVS) system (although so far few rights have been granted). Thanks to Malcolm Stewart and John Barrow. PSB has been reading up on the P2PP users' manual and has got a copy of P2PP with a `tutorial' account to create test OBs to help figure out the features of the interface between templates and OBs. A slightly updated version of the VDFS users requirement document is at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/vdfs/internal/WP2/VDF-SPE-IOA-20000-0001.pdf including a paragraph 4.3 on OBs in Surveys and a few minor fixes. PSB has been in contact with Steven Beard and Nirmal Bissonauth re DID. Nirmal is designing the HOWFS software, and PSB has generated a first-pass DID for the HOWFS from his design document. The pipeline will probably not see HOWFS data, but its parameters will be part of the overall DID. Malcolm Stewart has procured paper copies of UVES and VLTI DFS design documents, as further examples of what other groups did. Following PSBs exemplary report everyone else is encouraged to send information to STH for the end of month report by Friday. <<<< There was some discussion as to the membership of VDUC. We have been invited to suggest some names. Steve Maddox, Phil James and Steve Phillipps were put forward. STH will email JPE with our suggestions. <<<< 9. AOB MJI and PSB should raise the issue of VISTA dome flats with WJS. <<<< MJI said that there was no further APM building news. Continuing Actions ------------------ STH finish the bright star checking of the photometric standard fields STH look at the spatial systematics in the UFTI standards data and new test data JRL send WFCAM example FITS headers and files to Adam and Benoit MJI raise various items at telecon in particular acquiring sdf test file PSB finish the short document highlighting missing functionality from JRL CPL/QFITS and set out advantages/disadvantages compared to using our own modules + CFITSIO. New Actions ----------- MJI clarify with MMC that the data from the lab tests don't need to have the full header packets on them. Also confirm that they would be FITS and not SDF files. STH prepare an overview GANTT chart, a detailed GANTT chart and a work-package spreadsheet for PPRP meeting (and copies for the meeting). JRL provide copies of UFTI reports for PPRP meeting MJI stack all of J,H,K FIRES data and report on findings for next meeting JRL inform STH which ISAAC frames are missing STH acquire missing ISAAC data STH acquire FIRES reduced data in order to compare with JRL's reduced ISAAC data STH calibrate FIRES data using NICMOS or the published FIRES work JRL write a report on ISAAC reductions MJI JRL using subset of ISAAC data do tests on swapping sky subtraction and flat-fielding around MJI invite WJS to these meetings ALL (except PSB) send end-of-month reports to STH by Friday STH email JPE with our suggestions for the VDUC MJI raise issue of dome flats with WJS PSB