19th September 2006 Hoyle Committee Room 10.00 - 12:40 Present: DWE, MJI, JRL, PSB, STH, EGS, RGM, WJS Apologies: MR, BEL Agenda ------ Draft Agenda: 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Report from VDMT meeting 4. Report from Dubrovnik conference 5. Data archives update 6. Optical processing update 7. WFCAM news 8. VISTA news 9. UK review 10. VISTA public surveys - VVV, VIDEO, UltraV, Viking, VMC, VHS 11. AOB - ADASS Minutes ------- 1. Actions from last meeting JRL has not implemented the fix to the problem with the UKIRT archive (missing header information problem) - ongoing <<<< JRL mentioned that there has been some difficulty in reading the tapes required. DWE reminded ALL about the location of Plone site. A new server has been bought and is up and running. However, no comments have come in yet. STH has been in contact with Albert Zijlstra to acquire the tiled supernova remnant image. The image will be forthcoming - ongoing <<<< STH has not investigated the effects of stacking on the 2MASS/WFCAM non-linearity comparison - ongoing <<<< EGS decided on a specification for the CASU web server, ordered it and PSB got it working. This will also be the location of a number of our MJI services in future. There followed some discussion regarding which flavour of Linux was best (Debian, Obuntu, ...) DWE has added the casuhelp email address to the bottom of each Plone page STH has contacted SJW to place this email address on the UKIDSS website and advertize it. This has not happened so STH will prod him again. DWE noted that the WSA site refers to the new email address (thanks). JRL has contacted AAT regarding the PostgreSQL problems so that he can repair the AAT archive. He is awaiting a response - ongoing <<<< EGS has made the new ING archive interface live, but it was noted that this wasn't the default one. EGS was asked to make the new interface the default one and offer a link to the old one - ongoing <<<< JRL has emailed AJA about fixes to the UKIRT archive MJI have not emailed the new WFCAM colour equations to DWE and JRL since STH they are still tweaking the Y & Z calibrations - ongoing <<<< PSB have discussed a proposal for RECIPE keywords, but have not come to JRL an agreement yet - ongoing <<<< MJI It was also decided to bring in WJS in on this discussion. STH has not provided JRL with new figures for DRLD PSB emailed JPE about an ICD for the Garching-Cambridge interface. JPE said that he would raise the issue with Martino Romaniello. 2. Comments on WFAU minutes It was noted that there was a gap of one week in the WFAU minutes. RGM noted that although the data for some parts of 06A has been copied to WFAU, the flat file access to these files is not yet available. RGM pointed out that flat files should be made available almost immediately after the data has been copied. The use of cheap IBM machines was discussed. This was probably not considered a good option for CASU. It was pointed out that these machines might have a high air-conditioning requirement. PSB said that there had not been any progress on the UKLight front since Edinburgh computing services have found the correct components. PSB said that he would send an email to see if the situation could be advanced. <<<< 3. Report from VDMT meeting STH reported on a UKIDSS Survey Heads telecon held on 7 September 2006. The minutes can be found at: http://wiki.astrogrid.org/pub/UKIDSS/VarDocs/telcon-minutes-20060908.pdf One of the main topics discussed was the DR2 data release. It is likely that this would not be until February 2006 due to the overheads of reingesting. The ingest of 06A will take place in December and the whole process will take a few months. DR2 will consist of 05A (V3), 05B and 06A. UDS is not part of the reprocessing, but the stacks will be available. It was mentioned that UDS have requested some nights to be reprocessed. This is in hand. (This is what Simon said and it vaguely matches their minutes, but I'm not 100% sure about this.) The new calibration was discussed and the next release will be with the new calibration. There was discussion regarding quality flags. In particular, where should the cross talk flag come from - the catalogue- or archive- end? It was considered that the latter would be the more sensible option. NCH is writing a timetable for DR2 and the above issues. Checking of the reprocessed data was also a concern, however no-one has seen the reprocessed data yet (apart from via the flat files). There will probably be a future meeting to discuss this. The telecon also covered issues of scheduling and planning for 06B. STH added that there are discussions ongoing with the University of Hawai'i regarding adding a part of their observing pot into UKIDSS. (Although this might be politically sensitive, it already is in their public minutes). MJI reported on the VDMT telecon held on 4th September. Most of the actions on CASU result from the forecoming UK design review. It is likely that a PPARC representative will attend the review. 4. Report from Dubrovnik conference DWE reported on a very enjoyable image processing workshop in Dubrovnik. The main thing gained from this was that there are no problems with the way that the PSF software has been written. It confirmed the original assessment that the existing software was not automatic enough and that bespoke software was the right choice. Also, the only point to PSF fitting is in crowded fields. It was interesting to note that a number of particle physicists attended and are likely to be working on LSST in future. They have a lot of experience working with very large datasets and in detecting needles in haystacks. There was some discussion on uberCalibrations ie. using overlaps as additional information in your absolute calibrations (photometry and astrometry). There have been problems with the uberAstrometry and DWE suggested going back to unterAstrometry since there are enough standards to calibrate your (wide) fields directly. DWE tried to get the topic of persistence discussed, but all that was said was that it was not removable from the data and that the best that could be done was to flag affected images ie. the same conclusions we've arrived at. 5. Data archives update MJI said that all was quiet on the archive front (no problems and no news). 6. Optical processing update The main optical processing that is currently being carried out is the recovery from the failure of /data/cass55_c. Janet Drew said that KIDS will be expanding to 5000 square degrees. It is unclear where this extra observing time will come from. 7. WFCAM news RGM said that the first redshift 6 QSO from WFCAM has been detected. This has been confirmed on the NTT. In carrying out this search crosstalk contaminants have been successfully identified and removed. RGM thought it ironic that the latest crosstalk removal algorithm makes it harder to identify very faint crosstalk contaminants. All the WFCAM processing has been completed. The checking of this data is progressing slowly. MJI asked JRL if the extra keywords had been sorted and they had. (more details are needed...) JRL was asked to add a detection filter specification as a command line option of the pipeline version of imcore. <<<< DWE said that he has had a discussion with Phil Lucas regarding PSF fitting in the GPS fields. Phil is keen to get involved in part of the testing process. It is important that the WFCAM PSF routines get tested with respect to the more manual PSF software that exists. This will provide a useful benchmark. JRL said that we are still waiting to hear if there is a solution to the MSB id checksum issue. It was noted that only the 1st month of 05A has been ingested. 8. VISTA news WJS reported on the latest news from the telescope. The Paranal site is running on its own generator and it is still likely that it will be doing so when the camera gets there. The telescope acceptance is scheduled for the second week in October and currently all looks OK. The primary mirror is slowly converging and might be accepted in December. The secondary mirror meets the wavefront specification. A finder telescope will be installed in November/December. Also a 25cm baby mirror is still being considered so that some tests may take place even though the primary is not installed (this would take about 3 months and cost ~£20k) The earliest commissioning will be April. The IR camera is all OK. PSB said that he visited RAL last Tuesday (12th) and took part in further VIRCAM tests. More test data has been acquired and this will be digested in due course. There will definitely be no more data available until the camera is at Paranal. The camera is now being warmed up. The initial reaction is that the new replacement chip is much better than the old one. WJS said that the results of the image quality tests will not delay the shipping of the camera. It was noted that a minor upgrade has been carried out to the ETC regarding pawprints. PSB said that he still has to update the documentation about this. <<<< There was some discussion regarding the concept of a half-filled tile. UltraV (the project that merged all deep field proposals) wants this. It was thought that the template could probably cope with this. 9. UK review The document list for the UK review was discussed. The document describing the hardware design for the operating of the pipeline will now be called the Operating Design Document (main author - PSB). JRL said that he would email Sandra Castro to find out what the hardware requirement for the summit will be. <<<< MJI said that he had recently been working on the technical paper. Since there had been no comments forthcoming regarding the Plone site a volunteer was asked to carry out the testing. JRL volunteered. <<<< MJI gave further details of the review Start 24 October Tuesday 10:30 End 25 October Wednesday 15:30 Lunch will be provided on both days and it is expected that about 20 people will be involved in total. There will also be an evening meal for all on the Tuesday. The documents will be send out on 30 September and give about 2 weeks for the panel to ask questions. It is intended that the answers will be discussed at the review. There will be 3 brief presentations given before lunch on the first day, followed by questions and answers. MJI reminded us that the review panel will be chaired by Luc Simard and consist of Gavin Dalton, Tim Naylor, Matt Jarvis and Bob Nichol. 10. VISTA public surveys VVV (bulge, Galactic plane, time series) VIDEO (deepish) UltraV (deep) Viking (deepish) VMC (Magellanic Clouds) VHS (shallow) The above are the foreseen VISTA public surveys. This range of different surveys shows the different conditions that the pipeline will have to cope with: crowded fields, shallow wide-area surveys, very deep surveys involving iterative stacking, time-series analysis. For the UK review, CASU will need to show that the pipeline can cope with the varying requests coming from these surveys. 11. AOB Power cut: All went well with the power cut and there were no problems with any of the machine in the APM building. PSB said that site-wide the only failure was one disk and one network switch. APM3: We were reminded that the home disks of apm3 have now been united with those of apm6. Quarterly reports: STH reminded us that quarterly reports will be needed by the end of the month. <<<< It was noted that a Gaia CU5 meeting will be held in Cambridge on 25/26 September. STH said that FvL was willing to have a meeting with the group in order to see where people might see themselves fitting into the CU5 plans. ADASS: JRL reported on progress with the catering for the ADASS 2007 meeting. Judging from an arduous taste test carried out by JRL and PSB, the choice made was very good on quality and quite reasonable in price. These caterers will be responsible for the reception and the breaks (tea & coffee). They will probably also set up a "cash lunch" area to provide for those who do not wish to forage on Kensington High Street. The poster was shown and liked by all (apart from minor dissent). The conference dinner is becoming more problematic. The original plan was to travel by boat up to the NMM and have the dinner there. However, the quotes in so far (4 out of 5) are expensive: £100 per person. Normally this is about $50. The choice of caterers at the NMM is limited eg. the reasonably priced ones chosen for the reception are not on the NMM approved list. A new venue is being sought. Continuing Actions ------------------ JRL finish the fix to problem with UKIRT archive (missing header information) STH acquire tiled supernova remnant image STH investigate effects of stacking on 2MASS/WFCAM non-linearity comparison JRL repair AAT archive (PostgreSQL problems) EGS make the new ING archive interface the default one MJI email new WFCAM colour equations to DWE and JRL STH PSB agree on a proposal for RECIPE keywords and discuss with SMB JRL MJI WJS New Actions ----------- JRL add detection filter specification as command line option of pipeline version of imcore. PSB update ETC documentation regarding pawprints JRL email Sandra Castro to find out the Paranal hardware requirements JRL test out the Plone site ALL send quarterly reports to STH by end of month