16th Apr 2009 APM Meeting tables 11:30-13:00 Present: MJI, JRL, STH, MR, EGS, RGM, SC, RWA Apologies: NAW Agenda ------ 1. Actions from last meeting 2. Comments on WFAU minutes 3. Recent and upcoming meetings 4. Data archives update - AAT, ING, WFCAM, UKIRT 5. Optical/NIR processing - HAWKI, INT WFC, MegaCam, Subaru 6. WFCAM update 7. VISTA update 8. AOB - rolling grant status etc.. Minutes ------- STH check that Plone technical description pages are up to date MJI JRL reported that he had a beautiful image from HAWKI and STH said he was designing a website to put it (and others like it) on. He will also add something about the HAWKI photometry. There is a zoomable browser used for Spitzer images which seems to work very well and which emphasizes the splendour of the HAWKI images which are of very high quality. JRL has re-processed all the data and MJI said he would look at it all again. MJI finish off stage-I software release pages. RWA to help edit EGS technical pages but needs edit access. There were two technical terms to add - STH update the astrometry page. MJI finish off technical paper. MJI said he was not going anywhere in May and would devote a week of time to this task. RGM liaise with JRL about processing HAWKI PI data - ongoing JRL redo the HAWKI NB image data processing to improve sky subtraction JRL sort out remaining VISTA documentation set and make sure latest STH copies are available on internal web pages. JRL has all but one RWA document in place, that being the ETC(?) which does not appear to exist in machine readable copy or print. MJI says we need all the docs and pdf in one palce and JRL exhorted everyone not to modify them to great relief. JRL said the head author is responsible for updating. DWE Still a lot of stuff in PSB's home directory not sorted. Move JRL the documents to one place. MJI write utility to convert binary tables with all corrections applied to ASCII JRL send latest version of cataloguing software to WFAU. Not yet done. MJI contact JPE about one of group partaking in VISTA telecon 24th March. MJI enquired and it happened. NAW submit abstract for CASU talk at JENAM. EGS also giving a talk. JRL place keyword in sky FITS file describing which method has been used after request by Richard. Ongoing. EGS inquire what language UVEX team are using for coding and produce example. The answer is C and they will provide a sample of software to use. NAW send polite but firm email to IPHAS about VIZIER data release MR chase up wherewithall to produce duplicate WFCAM transfer script. Ongoing. He needs to log in to Pete's machibe MJI inquire about status of new WFCAM linearity measures MJI forward UDS test results to JRL(JE?) - done STH test not applying non-linearity correction to see how this might JRL affect observed non-linearity -v- 2mass 1. Actions from the last meeting RWA will help out with updating the technical pages but will need edit access. RWA will also arrange future group meetings and will do the minutes from now on. There are two new technical terms to add. STH will update the astrometry page 2. WFAU minutes There have been two lots since the last meeting. DF5 happened on Apr 8. GPS/UDS? are not in it yet but will be shortly - timescales about the next release. Edinburgh have 08A and 08B data. We are fixing Petrosian fluxes back from 08A to 05A but 08B has already got these fixes in it. RGM noted no objects with -99 in the DR5 data release, although LAS is flagged as being. There are no saturated objects in DR5 but they have the information to deal with them. MJI applies level of 90% of saturation to include objects. 3. Recent and upcoimg meetings Had a recent VISTA Interument Operations telecon on Mar 26. JRL asked to do a saturation document and give advice on offset skys and also to report on what he has learned but we need to do this via the Project Office before the next Instrument Operation telescon which is April 28. MJI will advise on astrometry, STH on photometry and JRL on image processing but this needs to go through VPO well before since Jim Emerson needs to a submit a report by Apr 23. It was decided to put the minutes of these telecons on the Solaris HTML pages - specifically VISTA Miscellaneous. STH and NAW went to a meeting in Aarhus with beer at 8 quid a pint - hence Nick's grumpiness. STH to attend PLATO (transit satellite) consortium on Jun 5 in Rome. NAW and EG report nothing relevant from the Euro VO workshop on ? in ?. STH had a week-long meeting with folk from ASTEP who seem happy with our contribution. They have 8 x 8 degree fields taken unfiltered in the optical with exposures every 30 seconds, even with the Sun above the horizon and also a nice movie of the Aurora Australis. Used TYCHO2 for the astrometry. Put on the webpage 4. Data archives AAT: Data continues to come in. INT: Data keeps coming in - occasional header problem. WFCAM: Data continuing. Recent request from Jim G. UKIRT: 95% of DLTs read - just a few composite DLTs and LTOs to absorb. JRL says the latest (and last) CASS data has yet to come. 5. Optical/NIR processing : HAWKI, INT WFC, MegaCam, Subaru HAWKI - reprocessed, recatalogued and awaiting input fropm MJI. Its on apm29_a INT WFC. Not much to report. Processed SNR data for Albert Zijlstra. Megacam - no updata SUBARU - no update IPHAS - no update UVEX - ingesting to database. EGS will export of ASCII labels to Dutch. 6. WFCAM update Semester 09A has been a great success - it seems to consist entirely of sky flats from February which will be kept until later in April to be dealt with. MR finished the last observed night this morning. It has a truncated header - maybe 50 lines instead of 300. MJI needs to send a UKIRT Board report for the May meeting by the end of the month. and STH will submit an update. JRL to check if CFITSIO has been updated. MJI reported that Edinburgh had ingested both 08A and 08B without problems and has been talking to Nigel Hambly about the average confidence levels for flat files. Nigel is happy for us to do this. MJI is to take into account blending when updating the catalogue and also to include average confidence level for aperture 3. <<< MJI reported that we have now finished UDS K band from 05A to 07B and it is hoped that this will go into DR5 by the end of May. 7. VISTA update No new VISTA data since the camera having been put back on the telescope has now been removed from the telescope again. This has not stopped a flow of disks from ESO each containing about 50 Mbyte of log files at a transport cost of about 70 pounds per disk. STH/MR will look at every detector but in a random fashion every n files to pick up any problems. JRL says that detector 16 is *&%$£! The flat field is changing continuously over the top one-third of the chip. JRL has also done some tests with a program called MONTAGE which could be use for tiling, or at least suggest how we might approach this task. We need to decide which keywords are to go in the tiles. So far, no decision has been made on how the RECIPE keyword is to be populated. VISTA parameters webpage. JRL said this is still stalled and needs some action from MJI who will look at the VISTA reduced data and make sure that standard forms for WFCAM are produced. Jim Emerson has booked the RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting on Nov 12, 2010 for VISTA. 8. AOB MJI said that he expected no news about the grant until after the Budget. Interviews for two posts had now been concluded and we had appointed two people, one of whom (astronomer/software) had accepted and would arrive around 1 Jul or 1 Aug, and the other (software/astronomer) had provisonally accepted contingent on her partner also getting a job. This post would probably start around 1 Oct. We have two new RAID arrays. One fell off the back of Andy Ibbotson's lorry and is called apm22_e (14 TByte). The other will be called apm35_a and will be configured to keep the reduced VISTA data whilst apm29_a would house the raw data. JRL said he would move stuff which has already been reduced. <<< Continuing actions ------------------ STH check that Plone technical description pages are up to date MJI JRL produce web page of HawkI publicity for CASU MJI finish off stage-I software release pages EGS MJI finish off technical paper RGM liaise with JRL about processing HawkI PI data MR chase up wherewithall to produce duplicate WFCAM transfer script. Ongoing. He needs to log in to Pete's machibe JRL redo the HawkI NB image data processing to improve sky subtraction JRL sort out remaining VISTA documentation set and make sure latest STH copies are available on internal web pages RWA Actions ------- DWE/JRL will be responsible for moving VISTA documents to one place. STH put ASTEP data on webpage MJI prepare a report for UKIRT Board meeting at end of April MJI, STH, JKL prepare report for Vista Project Office before next telecon on Apr 28 JRL to check if CFITSIO has been updated. STH, MJI look at detector data for VISTA RGM liaise with JRL about processing HawkI PI data - ongoing MJI HAWKI - reprocessed, recatalogued and awaiting input. Its on apm29_a EGS - will export ASCII labels of UVEX to Dutch. MJI look at reduced VISTA data and produce standard form for WFCAM JRL move reduced WFCAM data to apm35