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14th August 2003 

Present:   MJI, STH, JRL, PSB, JMI

Apologies: DWE


Agenda
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1. Actions from last meeting
2. Comments on WFAU minutes
3. Progress of VDFS ESO documents
4. Progress of simulations
5. AOB


Minutes
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1. Actions from last meeting

STH  received a reply from Sandy Legget re: photometric monitoring data.
     Sandy is waiting until the most recent data is processed before 
     forwarding the results - ongoing                                      <<<<

MJI  have updated the overview WP spreadsheets and placed them online
STH  in internal/management/ - though MJI pointed out a error
     in the yearly totals                                                  <<<<

JRL  has produced a night of pseudo WFCAM data based on CIRSI data
     see /data/apm3_a/jrl/testwfcam/

JRL  pipeline milestones and tasks still being iterated on with AA         <<<<
MJI  

MJI  JRL and MJI submitted ADASS abstracts (on pipeline infrastructure 
JRL  and photometry) and asked for oral presentations 
PSB  

ALL  sent in their WP progress reports on time

MJI  raised issue about communication problems at MCM but decided to
     resolve internally

MJI  to ask AA about progress re: UKIDSS Survey Manager appointment on 
     Hawaii - ongoing                                                      <<<<

DWE  found that the problems with artdata and galaxies was a bug in
STH  the way the random no. generation seeding was being handled,
JMI  now an official IRAF artdata bug.  The score from the catalogue 
     data/model comparison so far is:  catalogues  2  0  simulations

DWE  talked to Carine about the GAIA simulations which helped resolve
     some of the skymaker problems, but not all.  Since artdata is now
     working for both stars and galaxies, skymaker is solely being
     used as a sanity check on the stellar simulation comparison.

JMI  has incorporated the suggested improvements to the differencing 
     imaging report and generated a global quantitative statistic for
     intercomparison of the methods



2. Comments on WFAU minutes

There were no comments.


3. Progress of VDFS ESO documents

PSB had placed the current version of these documents on the internal 
web page for discussion prior to the meeting.  There ensued a long 
discussion about the content, purpose and intended audience of the DFS 
user requirements, calibration plan and DID documents.  These were 
generally thought to be making good progress with one or two obvious
areas requiring some injection of new thought/information.  MJI (sic!)
volunteered to update the overview (section 2.) of the user requirements
document based on his understanding on the extant VISTA science      
requirements and OCDD.                                                     <<<<

It was felt that the calibration plan document ought to at least mention 
all the processing steps required, even if not strictly calibration (eg.
microstepping/interleaving, coaddition), as a place holder for dependent 
(subsequent) documents such as the data reduction specification doc.  A 
few minor internal changes in layout and section headings were suggested 
to help clarify the overall structure.

[After the meeting MJI noted that he had forgotten to mention a couple of
salient points and forwarded them directly to PSB.]

The DID is being developed from a list of defined FITS keywords and 
attributes.  MJI brought along an example of an ESO WFI FITS header
to provide inspiration, and both MJI and PSB brought along the out of
data WFCAM FITS header document (V0.5) and asked JRL to place the current 
version (V0.6) on the docs web page.  These two additional documents plus 
PSB's current version of the FITS specification give a fairly comprehensive 
basis for the first draft of the DID.                                      <<<<

A brief discussion over the allowed WCS possibilities ensued and a 
majority decision to stick with the CD matrix and the new ZPN PV2_n
model currently being promoted for WFCAM was made.  PSB raised the
issue of reference systems.  2mass which we are proposing to use for at
least the first pass astrometry, is based on the ICRS through direct
calibration from Tycho 2.  Systematics in 2mass have been independently
measured (USNO + UCAC) to be better than  ~100 mas.  This meets the
absolute astrometry goal.  JRL and MJI urged PSB to keep the equinox 
keyword.

The issue of intra-pixel sensitivity measurements was raised.  Are any
meansurements of this being planned for the VISTA NIR detectors ?
Since it is a calibration issue this ought to be added to the calibration 
plan document and discussed at the upcoming camera design review meeting.  <<<<


4. Progress of simulations

Good progress has been made with these now that the bug with artdata has
been cleared up.  JMI presented a very good draft version of the report 
at the meeting and a few suggestions to improve the layout and clarify 
some issues were made.  Overall the results were more or less as expected
(finally) but with some interesting features highlighted.  A favourable
intercomparison with the WFCAM web page predictions has been made and is 
incorporated in tabular form.  This gives us a good benchmark for the 
current catalogue software (designed for optical mosaic cameras) to be 
compared with later versions.

Slight design changes: it would be easier to navigate if the x-y coordinate
plots were combined into one positional error plot, and if the report
was reorganised into major sections (eg. astrometry, photometry, 
classification, derived DQC parameters - seeing, sky level, sky noise,
<stellar> ellipticity).  Appendices could contain some of the ancilliary 
plots to break up the rather large html page it has become.                <<<<


5. AOB

There were several miscellaneous items reported on:

The move and rack mounting of JRLs SUN Sybase server equipment was 
completed last week together with rack mounting the other CASU SUN 
server equipment and installation of an additional rack-mounted 2 Tbyte 
RAID array in the same rack.  Rack mounting the RAID arrays involved some
ingenuity and some brute force - not necessarily in that order. This work 
also involved recabling assorted mains supplies and removing the first 
of the current APM hardware racks.

An intermittent fault with one of the Sybase server disks came to light
during the move.  It is being removed and the relevant catalogues placed
on a RAID array.

Our local computer supplier has contacted his Edinburgh office to arrange 
further Ultrium I/II compatibility tests in conjunction with PSB and NCH.

The quietness on the engineering test data front has been shattering.  
MJI will contact Mark directly and find out what the current status is.    <<<<

DWE sent in a brief report on his progress with SWarp commenting that he 
has managed to coerce it to generate 1/4 pixel shifts using various 
interpolation schemes, but that a more transparent way of doing this
would be desirable.  He is in touch with Bertin to further this.

JRL asked about the parameter order in the new catalogue software.  
MJI said he had sorted that part out and would forward an updated 
version, and that it basically follows the order and naming given in 
the CASU-WFAU ICD.                                                         <<<<


There has been no further news about the new job contracts.  Paul Aslin 
is chasing up the relevant folk in the Old Schools finance division since
we'll all be out of jobs next month.


Continuing Actions
------------------

STH  keep on pursuing Sandy Legget re: photometric monitoring data

STH  correct error in yearly totals for WP spreadsheet

MJI  to continue discussion of pipeline milestones tasks and dates 
JRL  with AA

MJI  to ask AA about progress UKIDSS Survey Manager appointment on Hawaii 


New Actions
-----------

MJI  update section 2. of DFS user requirements document

JRL  place V0.6 of FITS header document on docs web page and see if we can
     speed up getting the next (final?) version out

PSB  update the DFS docs in the light of comments received

JMI  update simulation report and release on public side of web pages
+ALL after receiving comments from rest of CASU group

MJI  to send JRL the latest version of imcore_wfcam

MJI  to contact Mark directly and find out about engineering data status