13th September 2004 Hoyle meeting room 10.00 - 12:30 Present: JRL, PSB, MJI, DWE, WJS, STH, JMI, RGM Apologies: EGS RGM also invited Nic Walton to the meeting. Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Report from VDMT meeting 4. JAC update - pipeline scripts (for commissioning) - tape saga - revised on-sky characterization tests 5. Status of RIX responses 6. CPL QFITS -v- not 7. The ETC document 8. APM building work update 9. AOB Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI has made no progress in comparing the FIRES project reduced data catalogues with ours. It is unlikely that this will get done until after the move out of the APM - ongoing <<<< STH has made no progress investigating MSBs. The PATT deadline is this week, so it will get done after that - ongoing <<<< JRL has investigated the WFCAM acceptance test data from the engineering array (obtained from Paul Hirst), but it did not contain much of use. JRL will try to acquire more science array data and will raise this issue at the JAC telecon tonight. <<<< MJI has found out that JPE has collated the RIX responses and passed them on to Michele Peron. PSB was happy with this. MJI has instigated a RIX response telecon for Thursday (16 September) see later item JRL has finished updating the pipeline to more gracefully deal with lack of fringe (or suitable flat) frames JMI has found some frames from the INT WFC observer logs that might be suitable to form updated master fringe frames. It was decided to to wait until they are available on DVD here since they may not be fully suitable. JRL has finished building in the option of using local versions of calibration catalogues in pipeline PSB has (with STH) written a draft Exposure Time Calculator (ETC) document - see item 7 MJI did send an LTO-I tape to JAC but the slow tape reading problem was solved anyway - see later STH will allocate a WP subtask for the next quarter to sort out the documents needed for the UK VDFS review and review the style requirements - ongoing until end of this quarter <<<< JRL has started writing the poster for the ADASS conference - ongoing <<<< ALL sent in monthly reports to STH WJS will attend Herschel meeting (21-23 September) - ongoing <<<< 2. Comments on WFAU minutes There were no comments 3. Report from VDMT meeting RGM pointed out that no action list from the VDMT meeting had been completed yet. STH reported that although we received our usual grilling at the meeting, there were no serious problems and that reviewed progress was satisfactory. He also noted that he had submitted some more EV statistics (including actual costs) to JMS at his request. Various points were raised (as requested). Michele Peron has been sent the RIX response document for comment and JPE was reminded of the need to issue the final version of this document. A telecon has been arranged to discuss the RIX responses and PSB has sent out a suggested agenda for this meeting. At the VDMT meeting JPE raised the possiblity of delaying the FDR currently scheduled for mid-December. This suggestion was not well received at the CASU meeting. The consensus was that given the schedule of other committments, particularly WFCAM commissioning in Feburary/March and the commencement of WFCAM operations March/April, having the ESO FDR later was not desirable. This matter will be discussed at the RIX reponse telecon (see also CPL+QFITS item) There was some discussion regarding the time and venue for this meeting. It was decided that PSB should book the Hoyle committee room for 1:30+ for Thursday (16th) afternoon. He should also check with ADB about phone access in the committee room. <<<< 4. JAC update The next JAC telecon will be tonight. - pipeline scripts (for commissioning) JRL said that for commissioning, a bit more flexibility was required in the pipeline recipes than for normal observing. Discussions with Paul Hirst (PH) at JAC are ongoing. - tape saga The solution to the slow LTO tape reading was to use "mt setblk=512" in this case to set the hardware reading block size to that of the tape. MJI still cannot understand why the blocksize is set to 512 bytes rather than the usual larger defaults of 10240 bytes, but ....... This solution had been uncovered by PH. Interestingly this "mt" option is only available on Linux. When asked how fast it went, MJI said "voom". In CASU units, 1 voom = 50-100 Gbytes/hour depending on machine load. - revised on-sky characterization tests Even though there is currently no corrector, quite a lot of tests can still be done. During the period of engineering commissioning, a lot of science array charactersation and some on-sky tests will be performed. MJI went through an email from PH which discussed the options. Given the likely number of tasks that could be progressed, there was further discussion about whether it would be useful for JRL to go out to JAC for some suitable period probably toward the end of November. It would be far easier to provide and update processing recipes and tune the pipeline in situ. Among other things JRL could help enable and carry out a full end-to-end test of the summit data processing system, tape writing scripts and FITS verification and CASU can then use this data to shakedown the ingest and verification procedures in Cambridge. This issue will be discussed further at the JAC telecon tonight. <<<< STH should send PH the list of photometric standards as soon as possible (and integrate it into the WFCAM document) since it looks likely that these will be needed at some point in the first on-sky commissioning phase starting ~end of October. <<<< RGM asked if MSBs would be tested during the first commissioning period. There was a mixed response as to how useful this would be. This will be raised at tonight's telecon. <<<< 5. Status of RIX responses PSB said that out of the 56 items about 7 need some serious drafting. Because of this he would have preferred a face-to-face meeting rather than a telecon but was pleased this action was being progressed. He pointed out that some of the templates might get changed since a way has been found of nesting the templates - this ties in with the request to rationalize the templates. There was some discussion regarding the actionee list since PSB was concerned that someone (not necessarily the same person) has to look at each item and check that the changes are OK. 6. CPL QFITS -v- not JPE has a copy of the document. It was unclear whether he had forwarded this to Michele Peron. MJI will find out whether he has or not. PSB was <<<< concerned that this document has already been released since it has been updated slightly since. MJI asked if we could commit to using CPL+QFITS for the Garching pipeline. He pointed out the longer term advantages of doing this and noted that this decision had to be made as part of the FDR. JRL commented that we could not commit to the current version of CPL+QFITS but that if the changes we had requested were implemented (the alternative is to have a waiver to use CFITSIO and WCSTOOLS as external libraries) the additional work to implement the standard pipeline in this way would not be too prohibitive. 7. The ETC document As a starting point this rough first draft was fine but MJI noted that some of the maths imported into it was misleading, and needed improving. He, STH and PSB will discuss the document in order to correct and rationalise it. <<<< 8. APM building work update PSB and MJI have had a meeting with the architect, contractor, EMBS, and Paul Aslin and Peter Weeks from the IoA. The contractual start date will be 4th October with completion date the 28th Januray. Prior to this, starting 20th September, the internal partition stud walls will be removed to enable the APM machine and associated crane gear to be removed on the 24th September. As a consequence of this all occupants, their belongings and all the computer equipment must be out by the end of this week (17th). It is intended that the computers will be moved sometime Wednesday to Friday, depending on the weather. There was some discussion as to whether a van was needed. PSB, MJI and JMI will be the heavies and will look into this. <<<< On schedule, it was pointed out that the portable cooling unit for the relocated computers had just arrived. MJI pointed out that there were assorted odds and ends of old furniture and spur shelving that will otherwise be skipped, if anyone is interested. At some point there will be a farewell wake to say goodbye to the APM. Initially this was scheduled for Friday, but it will now be deferred to the end of the week beginning 27 September. As completion is expected on the 28th January, STH said that he was looking forward to buying PSB an expensive lunch. MJI noted that each month there would be a review of progress meeting with the contractor, architects and EMBS. He also pointed out that MTB would be attending the conference in Chicago (8th October) in honour of Ed Kibblewhite's 60th birthday. 9. AOB NAW gave a short update on AstroGrid deployment and pointed out that INT WFS from Cambridge (images and catalogues) had been connected to AstroGrid. JRL was asked to lobby the IRAF people (either email or at the ADASS <<<< meeting) to incorporate the agreed FITS standard for the ZPN WCS projection in IRAF. This is one of the main complaints we get about our data products. There was some discussion regarding Rice compression since NAW was not familiar with this. The reduction in access bandwidth that this enables (a factor of ~4) makes this a desirable feature for Astrogrid deployment of image data. It was suggested that the fact that the reduced data from our pipeline would be Rice compressed should be given some prominence in the ADASS poster. <<<< WJS said that the VST meeting has now been postponed to the week 4-8th October. This is due to the ESO deadlines having been changed. Letters of Intent are now required by the 15th October, while the final proposal deadline is the 15th January. He said that he had about 4 or 5 responses. STH suggested that he extend the email list to explicitly include the VISTA and WFCAM consortia since not everyone is on the astrocommunity email list. <<<< The first tranche of the AAT archive on DVDs is arriving soon, just in time for the move of the DVD tower. There was a bit of a Gaia update from NAW and MJI. An activity update for science committee has just gone in to PPARC with the same staff profile as in the VEGA proposal, but with some hardware requests also included. In addition to the photometric reductions, this proposal would be responsible for the science alerts. This provides for development activity until 2010/11. MJI said that the general CASU + VDFS operations grant bid has been deferred until the end of October so that it is in sync with Edinburgh. This grant will notionally start from April 2005. WJS mentioned two proposals that had requested UK funding. These are for a collaboration on the Dark Energy Camera (which if funded will be at CTIO) and DarkCam, the deferred visible camera for VISTA. Continuing Actions ------------------ MJI compare FIRES project reduced data catalogues with ours STH investigate GPS MSBs (and any others obtained via Simon Dye) JRL obtain science array test data and raise this issue at the JAC telecon tonight STH allocate a WP subtask for the next quarter to sort out the documents needed for the UK VDFS review and review the style requirements JRL finish writing the poster for the ADASS conference WJS attend Herschel meeting and report back at subsequent CASU meeting New Actions ----------- PSB book the Hoyle committee room for 1:30+ Thursday and check with ADB regarding the phone JRL consider going out to Hawaii in November and raise the issue at the JAC telecon tonight STH send Paul Hirst the list of photometric standards and integrate it into the WFCAM document MJI ask at tonight's telecon if MSBs would be tested during the first JRL commissioning period MJI find out if JPE has forwarded the CPL/QFITS document to Michele Peron PSB update/correct the ETC document and send draft to JPE STH MJI PSB organize van for computer move if needed, and move the computers JRL lobby the IRAF people to fix the WCS problem in IRAF JRL put Rice compression somewhere prominent on the ADASS poster WJS extend the email distribution list for the VST meeting