27th July 2004 Hoyle meeting room 10.30 - 12:30 Present: JRL, PSB, MJI, DWE, WJS, STH, JMI Apologies: RGM Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. VDMT quarterly meeting 4. Q3 work plan 5. Status of WFCAM - WFCAM ZPTs - JRL and MJI WFCAM crosstalk data from Morag Hastie 6. VDFS VISTA stuff - VISTA UK URD and science examples - dicHEADs - QFITS - RIX responses 7. Pipeline Processing update - COROT/IPHAS - virtual console server - APM2/APM3 rack mounting + RAIDs + virtual consoles 8. AOB - APM building news - Grant updates - WASP stuff Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting MJI Some of the corrections to the last minutes didn't make it to the online version. The correct version should be mv'd to the online location. <<<< MJI has made some progress on the comparison of the FIRES project reduced data with ours. The WCS parameters in the headers have been corrected and pipeline catalogues have been generated. MJI asked STH for the <<<< location of the FIRES catalogues. There was also a discussion about different stacking options. Ongoing. <<<< JRL have written a document describing requested enhancements of QFITS (not PSB CPL). This should be circulated and all of us comment upon it. <<<< Further QFITS discussion was deferred until item 6. JRL has obtained a copy of the crosstalk data and Morag Hastie's report (see item 5). STH has emailed Simon Dye to request the proper MSBs that the survey heads have sent in. JMI has investigated the setting up of an external (to the APM building) backup location. 2 GB of storage will be required. Where this would go was discussed. It was decided to wait until /data/superstore was set up (soon). rsync will not now be used since it requires the use of root privileges. WJS has checked the latest URD and found no major problems. ALL the latest URD (version 0.7) can be found at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~wfcam/internal/vdfsdocs/vdfs-ukvurd_07.pdf Only a few comment in so far. The rest of us should read the new version and send in comments. Ongoing. <<<< ALL sent in monthly reports and quarterly data to STH. PSB have commented on RIX response document. WJS MJI JRL STH PSB has collated the RIX responses and sent them on to JPE. MJI has asked Peter Weeks regarding the storage of equipment during the building work. There has been no reply so far. MJI to chase up. <<<< 2. Comments on WFAU minutes There were no comments on the last 2 WFAU minutes. 3. VDMT quarterly meeting MJI reported that there had been a lively 1 hour discussion on the progress metric being used. The conclusion was to stop using Earned Value (since it had no value) and use a percentage completed statistic weighted by the estimate of the effort required for the task at the start. E-Science funding was discussed. This will cover the period up to October 2007 and about 3.5 FTEs. In order to get this money a form has to be filled in. This has been sent in by Paul Aslin. A statement of interest has been made regarding the processing of VST data. There seems to be a bit of buck-passing going on regarding which PPARC committee would be responsible for this work. MJI said that JPE was still keen on having a UK PDR (perhaps in January). There was general concern that this would take a significant amount of work (~one month) just when WFCAM on-sky commissioning would be taking place. It was stressed that the documents required for the UK PDR should be an addendum to those generated for the ESO PDR describing the extra UK requirements. It is important that things are not repeated and that we do not waste our time. It was noted that ROE had requested assistance in the selection of candidates for their 2 posts. The next VDMT meeting is a week on Friday (6 August). 4. Q3 work plan All were happy with the Q3 plan except PSB. He said that he would look at the plan and comment on them by the end of the day. <<<< 5. Status of WFCAM Steve Warren has sent out an email with the latest WFCAM status: all is OK except for the optics. The optics problems are to do with the corrector. Not only is the surface insufficiently accurate (RMS), but also the figure is the wrong shape. Since the cost of the blank is the significant part of the overall cost of the corrector, it has been decided to ship WFCAM without the corrector so that it can be repaired. The optimistic schedule has this being ready by January. More realistically, it will be March/April. UKIRT have already decided to schedule other instruments for the period Nov-Jan. Therefore, CASU personnel will not be required to go out until the New Year. - WFCAM ZPTs The magnitude discrepancy in the zeropoints has been sorted out. The ones being used in the CASU simulations are correct so the magnitude limit calculations don't need to be changed. - JRL and MJI WFCAM crosstalk data from Morag Hastie JRL reported on the crosstalk data received. Analysis of the data agrees with what was in the report. The strange +/- profile of the crosstalk images could be due to a bias problem, however no bias frames were available in order to check this out. In order to get more data we will have to wait until September. Various patterns were seen in the data which were repeated within the quadrants (after rotation), but not between frames. JRL was asked to acquire more data, specifically any darks and flats from <<<< Derek Ives and the acceptance test data from Paul Hirst. <<<< 6. VDFS VISTA stuff - VISTA UK URD and science examples MJI went through a few more science examples that had been emailed in that were not in the current version of the URD. He also had a few more comments regarding the 0.7 version which he will email to WJS. <<<< - dicHEADs PSB said that the data dictionary is supposed to be sent to Michelle Peron by 1 August. However, the TCS related terms need updating and is waiting for input from Malcolm Stewart. Should he wait for the data or send the incomplete dictionary? It was decided that he should email JPE how far he <<<< has progressed. - QFITS PSB went through the main points missing from QFITS: * access to MEFs via [] notation. Also extraction of arbitrary rectangle with data. * short data types eg. 8 and 16 bit data. * compression * WCS library * better error handling * the User Guide is shite * (CPL needs to be able to handle pixel masks (confidence masks) - RIX responses PSB said that these have been sent to JPE and it's gone very quiet. It is unclear whether these have been passed on to Michelle Peron. STH should check up on the status of these at the next VDMT. <<<< There was a general discussion as to the need for a meeting (with Steven Beard, Malcolm Stewart, Jim Emerson, ...) to sort out some of the issues arising from the RIX responses. It should be as soon as possible, but not August due to holidays, so September seemed likely. PSB and WJS were volunteered to arrange this. <<<< 7. Pipeline Processing update - COROT/IPHAS JMI reported that he has used IPHAS data as a dry run of the pipeline. The R and H_alpha data went straight through with no problems. Splitting the data by filter to the different computers seems to work fine. One problem was that access to USNOB was a bit slow and that a local copy should be used. JRL has some suggestions with regard to this. [It was noted in passing that there was an online disc archive on La Palma of all ING data since Jul/Aug 2003. So it is now possible to get replacement files of corrupted or missing data.] The progress monitor worked fine during these runs along with a monitor which showed the status of the computers. - virtual console server - APM2/APM3 rack mounting + RAIDs + virtual consoles JMI said that he had set up a virtual console server so that there was no need to have a console for each computer. From these virtual consoles you can access remotely the BIOS and perform various network operations which before had to be carried out on the computer's console. Thus, apm2 and apm3 can now be rack mounted. 8. AOB - APM building news MJI said that people keep coming in to measure stuff, so things are happening. However, there are no tenders as yet, so no dates. - Grant updates Paul Aslin is sorting out the grant left-overs (research etc.) - WASP stuff Since we had run out of time, this was postponed to some other time. Continuing Actions ------------------ MJI mv correct version of the previous minutes to the online location MJI compare FIRES project reduced data catalogues with ours ALL read QFITS wish-list and send in comments ALL read latest version of URD (0.7) http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~wfcam/internal/vdfsdocs/vdfs-ukvurd_07.pdf and send in comments MJI chase Peter Weeks regarding the storage of equipment during the building work New Actions ----------- STH provide location of FIRES catalogues to MJI PSB read Q3 plan and provide comments to STH by end of day JRL acquire any available darks or flats from Derek Ives JRL acquire the acceptance test data from Paul Hirst MJI email URD comments to WJS PSB email JPE to report on how far he has progressed with regards the data dictionary STH to check up status of RIX responses at next VDMT meeting PSB organize meeting to sort out some of the issues arising from the RIX WJS responses