Report from CASU
================

Data transfers
--------------

These are running smoothly through completion of 10B and the first few
months of 11A. The raw WFCAM data archive in Cambridge is up to date, as are 
the transfers of all raw UKIDSS and calibration data to the ESO archive. For 
the current state-of-play including transfers and processing status see
http://casu.ast.cam.ac.uk/surveys-projects/wfcam/data-processing/.


Cassegrain UKIRT archive
------------------------

No changes since the last report.


WFCAM processing
----------------

Semester 11A processing was completed on time and the first two months of 
11B processed data have now passed their final QC checks and monthly 
photometry updates and have been flagged as ready to copy for WFAU. 


Pipeline updates
----------------

There have been no significant changes recently. 


User queries
------------

Apart from some minor issues with recalcitrant GPS fields (see below), 
nothing new of note has cropped up since the last report.


Software release
----------------

We have made some of the more general purpose processing software available
as standalone programs.  These include the cataloguing software, nebuliser,
and dribbling algorithms.  This has lead to a reduction in requests for
us to carry out some extra processing steps but a slight increase in
our required external software support effort, see
http://casu.ast.cam.ac.uk/surveys-projects/software-release
for more details.


Fast-track releases
-------------------

There have been various fast-track flat file release requests including:

U/10A/8     Steve Warren       - multiple fast access requests
U/11A/H4    Niall Deacon       - multiple fast access requests
U/10B/8     Ben Burningham     - multiple fast access requests
U/CMP/4     Nial Tanvir        - usual GRB fast access
U/10B/K2    Myungshin Im       - mulitple fast access requests
U/11A/K1    Myungshin Im       - mulitple fast access requests


WFCAM reprocessing
------------------

The reprocessing for the "Cloudshine" project (U/06B/30, U/07B/6 and 
U/SERV/1763) was finished and the products released in November 2010, 
shortly after submitting the last Board report.  

The UDS H-band reprocessing for some 50-60 nights of 05B-07B is still in 
the queue. 

The other item in the queue relates to the GPS DR8 release which awaits 
several header fixes and a small amount of reprocessing:

a few fields have been noted as having non-convergent astrometric solutions.
This is a well known occassional problem in very crowded fields and we
are both fixing the reported ones, doing a more thorough search to see
if other examples exists, and improving the nightly checks to minimise
future occurrences of this problem;

a modest amount of nebulosity filtering and re-cataloguing for selected 
GPS DR8 fields is currently being undertaken and these will be re-released 
shortly;

the investigation into ways of improving the WFCAM calibration in regions of 
extremely high extinction e.g. E(B-V) > 10 is essentially complete.  This
turned out to be a more subtle problem than originally anticipated and 
involved also making the aperture correction computation more robust, in 
addition to improving the way 2MASS sources are selected in such high 
extinction regions.  Although this issue only badly affects around 150 
WFCAM GPS pointings, after discussing this with the PI we envisage 
recalibrating all the GPS data with the improved method to place it on a 
consistent footing.  As other survey data is not affected by this problem
these will be left alone.


Funding for WFCAM processing
----------------------------

There have been no changes in the current support level (1FTE/yr) up to the 
end of March 2012.  We are currently negotiating with Colin Vincent about 
the contents and timing of a CASU ground-based project portfolio grant 
submission.  We expect this to have a future WFCAM element (i.e. beyond the
end of March 2012), the exact nature of which remains to be determined.

Relating to possible future support, a new joint JAC-CASU-WFAU 
Memorandum-of-Understanding was circulated and agreed on earlier this year.  
In parallel, an updated set of Pipeline and Archive Science requirements has 
also done the rounds.