16 December 2003 Present: MJI, JRL, PSB, DWE, STH, RGM Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Report from Q4M2 VDMT (2nd December) 4. Report on JAC telecon 5. Report on Astrowise visit 6. Report on ESO visit 7. Progress with ISAAC reductions 8. APM building revamp - update 9. AOB Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting STH has continued with the checking of the southern extension of the photometric standards. DSS images of the relevant regions have been obtained but not fully checked yet. MJI suggested using a catalogue (eg Hipparcos) rather than images. <<<< STH the numbering of documents is now 85% complete. He promised that it would be completed before he goes away. <<<< MJI the information regarding the QE variations of the 4 science-grade detectors has been distributed by email. The current information is not that detailed. All are different, so different colour equations will be needed for all chips if these variations are true. A list of lab tests has been produced to be carried out in January. MJI said that he would place this on the web. <<<< JRL has not finished the reduction of the UFTI service data - ongoing <<<< STH is up-to-date on acquire the UFTI service data - ongoing <<<< STH has checked with SJW about the issue of manual CIRSI and FIRES comparisons. He is not interested in the CIRSI data. Although interested, he has no time to process the FIRES data. STH checking the spatial systematics in the UFTI standards data and new test data is an ongoing task. <<<< MJI supplied WFAU with WFCAM-CIRSI test data with updated headers to test WSA data ingestion. They have said that the data was fine and that it conformed to their schema. STH has updated the risk registers (long-term and short-term illness risk) and placed them on the web MJI have provided JPE with budget requirements for next VDFS bid (Jan). STH This is being iterated upon with JPE. The data required is for every 6 months since April 2002 and broken down into Travel, Consumables, Equipment and Staff. This also needs to be extrapolated. Ongoing <<<< PSB finalised agenda and goals for their ESO visit. This wasn't placed on the JRL web since it wasn't necessary. See later report on visit. ALL sent in brief reports on progress for Q4M2 VDMT PSB found out about date for PDR at the ESO meeting (see later) DWE asked Paul Aslin regarding the DAC election. Apparently the information regarding the nominations was placed on the notice boards and in the pigeonholes of academic staff "on the assumption that it would reach those interested". MJI said that it looked like all Hoyle pigeonholes had got one. STH sent in the written nomination for the DAC. STH duly got elected. JRL He said "Things will change". MJI MJI Attended APM building refurbishment meeting (see later) PSB 2. Comments on WFAU minutes The only comment was regarding the data transfer rate which raised the point that a data transfer test to ESO has been done which got up to 1 MByte/s which was acceptable. 3. Report from Q4M2 VDMT (2nd December) Simon reported on the last VDMT meeting via going through the action list: * JPE should work more with PSB to progress the ESO documents. This is being done. The issue of the VISTA Science Requirements document was raised again. WJS needs to rewrite this document. This will be raised at the next management meeting. <<<< This is also linked to to the formation of the VDUC. * JPE needs to add more management documentation to his VDFS web site. RGM said that he had visited this web site and that 50% of the links were broken. * JPE should generate a master list of dates needed for our GANTT charts. * MJI to supply WFAU with CIRSI data (done). * MJI/STH to supply budget information to JPE (in iterative progress). * STH/NCH to discuss calibration plan - in progress, awaiting feedback(?) * CASU to have regular telecons with JAC. It was decided that these would happen on at reasonably regular time, but mainly when they were necessary. The next VDMT meeting will be on 9 January in Cambridge. 4. Report on JAC telecon JRL reported on the last JAC telecon which was held two weeks ago. This was a short (30 minutes) meeting which mainly dealt with the state of the pipeline and what the current plan is. The big issue was how to do pipeline acceptance. How can this be done with no real data? What has been proposed was that the CASU pipeline should be able to process UFTI data as well as the current pipeline ie. get the same answers. Ideally it should also be faster. The next meeting will be 9pm tonight. 5. Report on Astrowise visit MJI reported on his visit to Astrowise in Groningen. (Mike - I'm hoping that you will fill in your report here) Astrowise seems to be a combination of AstroGrid, CASU and WFAU. Everything is combined, placed and controlled by one big object-oriented database. When asked if they can currently reduce any data, the answer was no. Astrowise seems to be closer to AstroGrid than anything else. There is probably not much that the VDFS pipeline can learn from Astrowise. etc. 6. Report on ESO visit (Pete's stuff is not really suitable for inclusion here - it's too rough. I'll use it as an aid-memoire though. I didn't take many notes since I was expecting something slightly different from Pete, so I may have missed some things that were said). PSB reported on the visit to ESO which he went on with the Jims (JPE and JRL). Peter Quinn said that ESO produces calibrated data, but don't do surveys. This might change in the future. The issue was raised if CASU personnel would be needed for the first VDFS commissioning. If this was the case then budgeting for this might be needed. The ESO internet connection is quite slow. They have a 34 Mbit/s link to the internet but will upgrade to 155 Mbit/s at some point. It was pointed out that the 1 MByte/s data transfer from Cambridge to ESO (mentioned earlier) amounts to 25% of this capacity. ESO are very keen for CASU to use the CPL and QFITS libraries. The use of CPL was not seen as a problem, but using QFITS would be bad since a lot of the CASU pipeline uses CFITSIO. QFITS doesn't have Rice compression nor WCS stuff, however the latter is not much of a problem since the pipeline uses WCSLIB (?) for most WCS calculations. According to the current contract we can use CFITSIO, but ESO would rather we didn't. The PDR for VISTA is going to be April+. The documentation needed for this needs to be in at least a month before this so by March. The status of other documents has implications for our documents. The Data Reduction document can't be done until the CPL document is released. The User Requirement document needs the Science Requirement document (see earlier comment). This probably needs the VDUC meeting to push things along. This is probably going to be in February. Overall, the ESO trip was regarded as very positive. PSB said "all the problems were little ones". 7. Progress with ISAAC reductions JRL reported that he was "nearly there". All the data had been checked. This was 4000 science frames amounting to 25 GB of data. 8. APM building revamp - update Last week MJI, PSB and Paul Aslin met up with the architects and Estate Management to go over the refurbishment of the APM building. A number of options were presented, but the end result was that these were too expensive (~£0.5M). There is no way that the IoA could go for this. A possible plan would be for 3 large double offices with an open area for visitors which would include a kitchen area. Windows would have to be knocked out of the wall where the APM is now. The dislike of any form of open plan design was passed on. It is likely that 10 people will be housed in the APM building. The timescale of the refurbishment will be summer+. This will be the same time as the commissioning of WFCAM. It is apparent that no thought has been given to what will happen to all the computer equipment that is currently in the APM building while the refurbishment is being carried out. Portacabins have been suggested, but there would be security problems with this solution. 9. AOB STH raised the issue of the reports that have to be in by the next management meeting on 9th January. STH will be between two observing trips during that week so that these reports must be in by the 5th, but STH said that he would much prefer it if they were in before Christmas. These reports are the Q4m3 monthly report and the 04Q1 deliverables. <<<< The rest of us will have a group meeting early during that week. RGM reported that Steve Warren had submitted a memorandum to the UKIRT board which had not been circulated for comments beforehand. A number of issues were raised eg. who is responsible for the the design of the MSBs. A problem with the memorandum was that it gave the impression that it was a group opinion and this was not the case. A valid (?) point raised was that the UKIRT board had been left a little bit out of the loop of VDFS development. In future this will be remedied by VDUC acting as a conduit between VDFS and UKIRT. Continuing Actions ------------------ STH finish the southern extension of the photometric standards (eg. bright star checking) STH finish off numbering of documents and email authors with the appropriate information MJI place list of lab tests to be carried out in January on the web JRL finish reduction of UFTI service data STH acquire UFTI service data as it becomes available and oversee UFTI reduction and comparison STH look at the spatial systematics in the UFTI standards data and new test data MJI iterate with JPE regarding budget requirements for next VDFS bid (Jan) STH and the spend since April 2002 New Actions ----------- MJI raise issue of WJS writing the VISTA Science Requirements document at the next management meeting, stressing how important it is. ALL send Q4m3 monthly report and 04Q1 deliverables to STH before Christmas (or by 5th January at latest)