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22nd April 2004  Hoyle meeting room 10.00 - 13:00

Present:   JRL, PSB, MJI, DWE, WJS
Apologies: STH, RGM

Agenda
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1.  Actions from last meeting
2.  Comments on WFAU minutes
3.  Report on JAC telecons and VDMT meeting
4.  ESO PDR news
5.  Update quarterly plan 04Q2
6.  Status WFCAM test data
7.  UK VDFS URD v0.4
8.  AOB

Minutes
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1.  Actions from last meeting

STH  has added a few more fields to the North of VISTA's zenith, however they
     did not make it to the Calibration Plan in time for PDR submission.
     
STH  did not add latitude lines to diagram in the Calibration Plan. It was
     a non-trivial issue with the software used.  This was not deemed to be
     important and was dropped.

STH  has made no progress regarding the spatial systematics in the UFTI 
     standards data and new test data - ongoing                            <<<<

MJI  no progress on comparison of FIRES project reduced data with 
     ours - ongoing                                                        <<<<

STH  has looked into the calibration of FIRES data using NICMOS. This turns
     out to be non-trivial, other possible options are 2MASS, and using
     published FIRES calibration  - ongoing                                <<<<

STH  some (64 files) ISAAC data are still missing. STH has requested these 
     from ESO and a CD-ROM is en route. These will be given to JRL.        <<<<

JRL  writing a report on ISAAC reductions is ongoing                       <<<<
MJI

ALL  some comments have come in regarding Paul Hirst's User Guide (see item 3)

ALL  had read V0.4 of the VISTA DFS UK User Requirements Document (see item 7)

ALL  had sent in items for the Q1 2004 report

STH  have gone over the Q2 2004 GANTT charts etc.
MJI


2.  Comments on WFAU minutes

It was noted that SSA (SuperCosmos Science Archive) will be released soon.

PSB was interested to know about the service level agreement that exists up
in Edinburgh particularly in regard to the comments about what pieces of 
equipment should be connected to a UPS.  He said that he would contact 
Nigel Hambly to find out more.                                             <<<<


3.  Report on JAC telecons and VDMT meeting

The last JAC telecon was on 5 April.  MJI reported on this.

A few comments were passed on regarding the User Guide. Since this was felt
to be at the draft level, detailed comments were not appropriate. What was
needed was general guidance as to what information should be in it. For
example, an astrometry section.  It turned out that links to MSB guidelines
and glossary were already present.  Also requested was a printable version 
for reading off-line (this has been provided).

JAC discussed possible delays to the schedule.  The current plan is still
to have the acceptance tests in May and if all goes well then, to ship in 
June and continue commissioning schedule as planned.

ATC are carrying on with lab tests using the engineering array and some
data from a series of tests on three of the science detectors was received
recently (see item 6).

There will be a UKIRT board meeting in Durham at the end of May. MJI asked
if a WFCAM pipeline presentation should be given.  JAC seemed keen on this
and will check if this is OK with the board.

No SDF example file has been sent to CASU yet.

When asked about progress on the MSB guidelines, AA said that he would
initiate this through the new CSV (Simon Dye).

A request had been made that the WFCAM milestones web page be updated. MJI
said that he would do this.                                               <<<<

JAC were keen to analyse individual frame catalogue files (eg. from a dither/
microstep sequence) to look for transients (eg. supernovae).  JRL confirmed 
that these could be stored while running the summit pipeline.  Normally the
individual catalogues are not kept.

The next JAC telecon will be tonight (22nd April)

MJI said that the VDMT meeting (5th April) was short and sweet due to PDR
preparation pressures. One of the issues raised was a reminder to email 
notification each time a CASU report was issued, or a major update occurred, 
rather than rely on looking at our diary page.  MJI said that he would draw 
up a list of email addresses and it would then be the responsibility of each 
author to email these people when they issued a report.                   <<<<

The PDR documents were sent to NCH for comments and the reply was gratifyingly
short and sweet.

The SPIE meeting in Glasgow is at the end of June. The paper deadline is 
24th May. MJI/JRL need to write a paper for this (probably presenting the 
FIRES data reduction as an example of what the pipeline can do).           <<<<

MJI said that the VDUC members have all been decided, signed-up, sealed and 
delivered.  The first meeting will be on 7th May in Cambridge.
VDUC consists of Tim Naylor (chair), Phil James, Phil Lucas, Steve Warren,
Steve Maddox, Alastair Edge, Will Sutherland and Nic Walton; with attendees
as needed from VPO, CASU, WFAU ++.


4.  ESO PDR news

The PDR documents have been submitted (8th April) and MJI noted that the 
PDR review team will be:

 Jim Emerson (Organizer/Chair)
 Michelle Peron
 Fernando Comeron
 Reinhard Hanuschik 
 Andreas Kaufer (Paranal)
     
The RIDs RIXs ...... will be sent from ESO at least 1 to 2 weeks before the 
PDR (in theory at least).  PSB said that he would write a shell document for
the reply and send out the PDF to all for comment.  This will enable style 
issues to be sorted out before they get in the way of the real work.       <<<<


5.  Update quarterly plan 04Q2

There was some discussion regarding the numbering of tasks within the work
packages. PSB wanted a separate task to be allocated for the sorting out of
the RIDs. However, it was felt more reasonable to add RID subtasks to each
of tasks 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3.

PSB felt that the wording of 2.5 needed clarifying. MJI said that he and 
STH would do this.  It was also agreed that the ISAAC example would now 
be dropped since it has passed its sell-by-date                            <<<<

Also 1.4b (VISTA and FITS headers) was also dropped since its is already
included in 2.5 already.  Final small change, MJI/STH were allocated to 
tasks 1.7a/b (liaising with VDUC). 


6.  Status WFCAM test data

MJI reported that some more WFCAM test data has been received by CASU.  
A week or so ago ~1-2 GB of data arrived on an LT01 tape. This contained 
data from 3 of the science chips (60, 62 and 63 - note that 62 is an 
ex-detector).  MJI returned the tape to help out the WFCAM budget.

The chips deliberately have an uneven illumination (pulsed LED in one corner)
limiting the number and type of tests that can be carried out. It was noted 
that all 32 channels on each detector have their own ADC and hence will 
need their own non-linearity correction.

An initial check by MJI on one of the datasets showed the following:
subtracting a pair of dark frames from each other left just noise;
the gain was measured at about 4, which was expected;
read-out noise was 12 e- 

JRL will carry out further checks (mainly to do with the reset anomaly and
attempting to do a zeroth order non-linearity measure).                    <<<<

MJI/JRL will ask for more news on this and other WFCAM aspects at 
tonight's JAC telecon.                                                     <<<<


7.  UK VDFS URD v0.4

WJS's UK User Requirements Document was discussed and comments noted by WJS.

Only a couple of comments are noted here since they seemed to stand out.

The ability to provide tiled data would be done on the fly ie. the archive
would only store the paw-prints and software utilities would be used to 
generate a tile, with a number of options offered to the user.

WJS mentioned a 30 second limit for the LOWFS to make a measurement.  
This might cause a problem if a series of short (say 10s) exposure 
jitters, or similar, are requested.



8.  AOB

MJI has been writing a report on non-linearity corrections. Making a few
assumptions (eg. constant illumination) the correction can be applied to the
data from the difference frame.  Although this was mainly concerned with
VISTA processing this method is useful as an alternative for WFCAM.
However, current expectation is for the non-linearity correction for WFCAM 
to be carried out in the DAS, and for the measurement to have access to
separate RR reset frames and RR exposure frames.

There is currently a PPARC data curation review being undertaken. MJI noted
that we are organising a targetted email to recent ING and UKIRT archive 
users, requesting their support by filling in the PPARC questionnaire.

During the afternoon, the VDFS schedule document was reviewed separately,
and there was also some discussion regarding document numbering. DWE agreed 
that he would write a document numbering document - with its own document 
number :) - in order to clarify (sic!) matters.                            <<<<


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

STH  finish looking at the spatial systematics in the UFTI standards data and
     new test data

MJI  compare FIRES project reduced data with ours

STH  supply missing ISAAC data to JRL

STH  calibrate FIRES data using NICMOS or the published FIRES work

JRL  finish report on ISAAC reductions
MJI

New Actions
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PSB  ask Nigel Hambly about their service level agreement

MJI  update the WFCAM milestones web page

MJI  generate an email notification list to be used when reports are issued
     and make sure every one knows about it

MJI  write paper for SPIE Glasgow (deadline 24th May)
JRL

PSB  write a shell document for the PDR RIDs and circulate

MJI  alter the Q2 2004 task list (see item 5 for details)

JRL  carry out further checks on the new WFCAM test data

MJI  ask for more news on WFCAM status at tonight's JAC telecon.
JRL 

DWE  write a document explaining CASU's document numbering system