From nch@roe.ac.uk Sat Dec 12 03:02:26 2009 Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:45:12 +0000 (GMT) From: Nigel Hambly To: WFCAM Science Archive Team -- Eckhard Sutorius , Mike Read , Mark Holliman , Nigel Hambly , Nicholas Cross , Rob Blake , Ross Collins Cc: CCs for WSA weekly meeting minutes distribution -- Andrew Lawrence , Andy Adamson , Jim Emerson , Malcolm Stewart , Lorenzo Rimoldini , Mike Irwin , Peredur Williams , Bob Mann , Stephen Warren Subject: WFAU VDFS Science Archive weekly project meeting minutes 11/12/09 Minutes of WFAU VDFS Science Archive meeting: December 11th 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Present: PMW, NCH, RSC, ETWS, NJC, RPB, MSH, MAR, RGM Apologies: JPE, JMS, AL DoNM: 10am, Friday December 18th 2009 in the VISTA Hut Actions discharged this week: ----------------------------- ACTION: RPB: backup all DB-driven products after UDS DR5. Discharged Actions partly discharged but continuing: ----------------------------------------- None this week Actions carried forward from 04/12/09 meeting: ---------------------------------------------- None this week Specific points and new actions: -------------------------------- Project management: Nothing of note this week. WFCAM & VISTA updates: ESO press release concerning VISTA is at http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-49-09.html and includes stunning images. Hearty congrats to all concerned. JPE has sent around a note concerning the distribution of the SV and PS dry-run data (i.e. observations from 15th Oct). Version 0.6 of the processed products as supplied by CASU can now be distributed to their respective recipients subject to the rules as laid out previously. The team agreed to set up flat-file access from the VSA for proprietary access by the PIs; PMW volunteered to speak to JPE by phone to clear this with the latter. Assuming agreement: ACTION: NCH to communicate availability of SV/dry-run from the VSA The team noted that we need to start working more closely with the PSPIs on their requirements and operational issues in the VSA (e.g. QC procedures). As noted in previous minutes, CASU plan to have a meeting at IoA concerning VDFS pipeline processing issues and it would seem sensible for WFAU to take the same opportunity to talk to the PIs. ACTION: RGM to email MJI to establish details of the VDFS meeting with PSPIs at IoA. WFCAM/UKIDSS heads-up: the call for observers from Feb'10 is imminent - dust off your surf-boards and iron your aloha shirts in readiness... Comments and issues arising from CASU minutes: No new minutes this week. Networking: Nothing of note this week WSA/VSA Operations: RPB noted that GPS DR6 is progressing well, while the release of the non-survey cal database fell over but is back up and running following a fix from NJC. ETWS noted that routine transfers/ingests are progressing well save a problem in the CU2 jpegger which is struggling to decompress Rice-compressed confidence frames (we think) following the CASU upgrade to cfitsio 3.14 as noted in their minutes of 21/09/09. This also may be a problem for some users (e.g. displaying images in Starling GAIA) if their software installations are anything other than fully up-to-date... Given one or two problems with cfitsio v. 3.14 Rice-compressed images as are now produced by CASU for VIRCAM and WFCAM (Oct 09B onwards) the team discussed the need to upgrade things at this end for compatibility. MSH suggested we stick the latest Debian 5 ("lenny" for some obscure reason) on linux curation server "sneferu" (for even more obscure reasons) to prepare for upgrades to the third-party SW suite early in the New Year. To work-around problems with CU2 immediately, the suggestion was to hack khafre by copying in the latest cfitsio 3.14 library and then recompiling the jpegger software to see if it solves the problem... MAR noted that he has started DR7 QC for the LAS/GCS/DXS; NCH noted that he has started eyeballing the 09A GCS data for the same and finds the data to be generally excellent (qualitatively at least). Hardware and Systems: MSH asked if it is now OK to start retiring/reconfiguring the old Windows DB servers now that operations and public DB access are now all working on the cluster. The team agreed that this can now happen, and hatshepsut is first on the list to be reconstituted as a new DB cluster node. The mighty thutmose is to remain for the time being as RGM is using it; it was even agreed that he could now have the system administration password for SQL Server on that machine. Software: RSC noted: "As I'm off for Christmas next week, I've gone through a check of the current software in trunk to make sure it could do a VSA shallow survey release if necessary. Ran through the post-CU4 scripts on the v0.5 data and produced test release databases for the SV Orion programme and commissioning programming (other programmes require deep stacks) with merged source tables and cross-match neighbour tables. This ironed out the last few remaining problems and so the software changes are now committed to trunk. Obviously post-CU4 curation of tiles and deep stacks is still to be tested. Investigated problems with the trunk version of mkmerge reported last week and this is now fixed for both WSA and VSA runs. Double checked all C++ code on NCH's request and discovered that all is perfectly fine, no memory leaks and no other problems identified for the usual test cases." RSC asked about quality error bit(s) for near-saturation following on from a close look at the available data with NJC and NCH. The team agreed to wait for more data before making a final decision on the flagging level. This week NJC has fixed a bug in the frameset matching for the SynopticMergeLog tables, and has added the astrometric information into the half-light radii code to get the values out in arcseconds for the VSA catalogues. MAR has been working on the VSA user interface multi-getimage and cross-id applications. Survey Data Release: DR7 QC progresses as noted previously; DR6 GPS preparation has reached cross-neighbour table production (CU16) following a quick source-merge (in append mode). RPB even suggested a pre-Xmas DR6 release for the GPS may be possible... 'Zat you, Santa Claus?! Non-survey Data Release: ACTION: RPB to copy in all 08B non-survey flat file info into the open-time as they are past their proprietary period. Astrogrid deployment & Data Analysis services: MSH noted that Mark Taylor has implemented new super-quick cone-search capability into the AG DSA SW, including new HTM functionality. This will hopefully result in much more efficient cone-searches, which is probably no bad thing since WSA in-coming from topcat queries employing the VO is apparently going through the roof. Miscellaneous: Nothing else this week. ============================================================= Nigel Hambly Tel: +44-131-668-8234 Institute for Astronomy Fax: +44-131-668-8416 School of Physics and Astronomy University of Edinburgh Email: nch@roe.ac.uk Royal Observatory Blackford Hill Edinburgh EH9 3HJ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. =============================================================