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7th February 2008  Hoyle Committee Room  10:00-12:20 (with coffee break)

Present:          STH, PSB, MJI, EGS, MR, NAW, RGM
Apologies:        DWE, JRL, RWA

Agenda
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1.  Actions from last meeting
2.  Comments on WFAU minutes
3.  Recent meetings/visits
4.  Data archives update
5.  Optical processing update
6.  WFCAM news
7.  VISTA news
8.  ADASS 2007
9.  AOB

Minutes
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1.  Actions from last meeting

MR   has put illumination correction information on web pages and STH has
     cross-linked to technical photometry pages and generally updated
     that section

STH  has not checked the advertized illumination correction information yet
     and will update the relevant section in the calibration paper when
     that is done.  The plan is to use LAS overlaps for the tests. Details 
     will be included in the paper and on the web site - ongoing           <<<<

MR   performed backup verification test using old LTO tapes and found 
     no problems

ALL  have not yet provided comments on photometric calibration paper.  
     STH hopes to get this finished by the end of the month (subject to how 
     difficult the illumination correction checking turns out to be) 
     - ongoing                                                             <<<<

JRL  still checking why pipeline catalogue software and toolkit give different 
     results in a few specific cases - ongoing                             <<<<
 
JRL  drafted letter of support regarding future of UKIRT/UKIDSS and 
     circulated it within group and sent it off

STH  fedback comments on Plone/HTML websites 

JRL  replied to EVO questionnaire before 20 January deadline

JRL  implemented decurtaining modification as an option for use in
     reprocessing

STH  has updated the plone pages (technical: catalogues generation) to  
     add a howto for using the WCS keywords - including some example perl  
     to convert X, Y pixel values to RA, DEC.  MJI to check.               <<<<

JRL  finalise and issue VIRCAM linearity report - done at end of meeting

ALL  reviewed printed copy of ADASS 2007 proceedings by end of January 

ALL  contributed to presentations for grant review

STH  have reviewed possible involvement in the PLATO assessment study
MJI  and communicated their interest to UK coordinator Ian Roxburgh


2.  Comments on WFAU minutes

UKLIGHT:
PSB met MSH and ETWS at ATC post CASU STFC review and had a useful discussion.
Meanwhile, CASU finally got an account on djedefre; in summary the main
bottleneck seems to be appalling write performance to the NAS boxes,
but a number of probably less important issues have also been identified.  
Thanks to Mark for pushing this forward.  Hopefully this will all pay off in 
a significant performance increase in the near future.


3.  Recent meetings/visits

There was a VDMT meeting Monday 21st Jan.  MJI recalled a comment by JPE
about availability of filter transmission curve(s) for the Z and N118
filters and was actioned to procure these to expedite completion of the
ESO ETC technical spec deliverables.                                       <<<<

The rolling grant review took place in Edinburgh on Tuesday 22nd Jan - 
presentations are available for perusal and the grant application has been
placed on the public web pages.

MJI pointed out an upcoming UltraVISTA science and technical (software) 
meeting in Leiden in March that he and JRL will be attending (in part).


4.  Data archives update    

Tapes:
All the ING dat tapes in the SPO have been disposed of. The early
archive tapes containing back-ups of APM data, for instance, have been
moved to a metal cupboard in the link area. This cupboard also contains the
latest WFCAM DLT tapes - the remainder of the collection is in the Obs
Meeting Room cupboard.  The longer term plan to to use two of these large
metal cabinets for backup tape storage.

Plate collections:
The Norman Lockyer plates are now at Sidmouth.

The Cambridge solar disk plates and photographic prints were delivered to RAL
last week.

The Kodaikanal plates will be boxed and sent to India on receipt of the right
documentation from IAA. An estimate of the cost of producing 12 crates each 
of which will contain 100 kg of plates, and air freighting to Bangalore has
been made.  The packers will require payment 7 days before collection.

We have a taker for the POSS plates and the film sky surveys. Staff from
the Sternwarte Hohenkarpfen in southern Germany will make two trips in
April with a van to remove the material which is in the link area and at
Laundry Farm.

AAT:
up to date

ING:
transfers continue seemlessly as usual.  Data to the end of January 2007 
has been checked.

WFCAM:
most of the remaining week or so of 07B data has been ftp'd - still awaiting
bits (ie. detector #3 data for last 3 nights).

UKIRT:
The latest load of UKIRT Cassegrain data has been ftp'd across. A few nights
had corrupted data (not the fault of FTP) and AJA will recreate the relevant
tar files.  The sdf->fits conversion is underway prior to the data being 
merged into the archive.  The UKIRT cass archive is due for backup again.  >>>>


5. Optical processing update 

No optical processing news per se, but it was noted that this topic needs
generalising to include other NIR processing. STH and RGM are both interested 
in the HAWK-I SV data and JRL is investigating processing it.  MJI is 
interested in some WIRCAM data and is awaiting shipment of it from CFH.


6.  WFCAM news

WFCAM Networking:
Progress is gradually being made on setting up automated network transfer
of raw WFAM data to CASU via the Internet. It is hoped a direct benefit
will be to shave a couple of weeks off delivery of science products though
more robust protocol need to be in place before this happens.

Most of the remaining WFCAM data for 07B has been transferred via the
internet, bar the last 3 nights of detector #3.

The expected UKIDSS wishlist was discussed:

the decurtaining aspect of the background artefacts problem has already
been addressed and solved, though it will be run as a reprocessing option
rather than blind, since for normal data it makes the background slighty
worse;

a possible solution for the point-source detection and parameterisation 
issue in regions of complex nebulosity has been derived and tested,
and is currently awaiting feedback from Phil Lucas;

much email exchange on sky estimation strategy for offset skies has
ensued with two general modes on the table - nodding between detectors
which has the advantage of efficiency, and nodding en masse to another
patch of sky, the trick with both is make the stratgey (and possible
observer interference) transparent to the pipeline;

elliptical apertures for galaxy photometry is an old story and possibly 
the best solution is simply to make the 3 galaxy photometry measures
(Petrosian, Kron and Hall) have elliptical apertures matched to the
ellipticty and PA defined by the intensity-weighted second moments (modulo
noise protection for faint images), MJI will check what SDSS folk do;     >>>>

optional full iterative PSF model fitting and Sersic profile fitting
as in long term development plans, in practice contingent on grant review 
outcome.


7.  VISTA news           

VISTA:
PSB also met up with SMB and NL at ATC post CASU STFC review and had 
useful discussions with both though he noted that "we" were still
collectively unsure how the RECIPE keyword will actually make its way
from user to FITS headers.  

A report on linearity based on Jul 2007 VIRCAM data, which achieved a
very limited circulation, has been updated including some information
gleaned from the brief October 2007 data set that could be used for
flatfielding tests, and was circulated at the end of this meeting.
It raises issues particularly with non-linearity, filter wheel positioning
and the narrow band filter.

An alpha release of CPL 4.1.0 was obtained from ESO which actually allows
operation of the DRL with tile-compressed FITS files. Given the
information-sparse content of much of the available data, compressing it
saves enormously on disk space.  The DRL has proved totally compatible with
the new CPL.

The possiblity of more cold camera test data was discussed with WJS when
he was last up in Cambridge. We already have a wishlist of observations
from the last run which are being updated in the light of recent results.
MJI encouraged PSB to polish this off and send it to WJS and JPE for 
consideration.                                                             <<<<

SMPs: a brief discussion about assorted aspects of the SMPs ensued 
triggered by the recent re-submission of the VVV SMP. RGM and MJI noted
that we do not seem to have up to date copies of all of these (eg. VIKING)
and were actioned to acquire the latest ones as necessary.                 <<<<

Several people commented that it would be ueseful to get an up to date SADT
to see what tiling patterns are going to be generated and how it
interacts with P2PP etc....


8.  ADASS 2007

JRL has submitted a final budget to the POC and arranged for Ian Bell to 
transfer the remaining cash from IoA back to ADASS.  He has also made a pass 
through the first printed version and RWA has made numerous editorial
corrections. The main work now lies with producing the subject index. Once 
this is complete, JRL will write a preface and then a final printed version 
will be passed around the editors before going off to ASP.


9.  AOB

A quote for partition construction in the main APM room has now been received 
and given the go ahead.  The build phase should last 3 weeks and in theory,
at least, will not disrupt computer services in the building.

PSB noted the upcoming IoA plans for installation of a 10 Gbit fibre backbone
around the site which will require us in the near future to upgrade at
least some of the network switches to 10 Gbit.

PSB also requested that we consider purchasing a new colour printer to
replace the current one.  So he was tasked with pricing some options (at WLC) 
and comparing with the current one.


Continuing actions

STH  checked the advertized illumination correction information using
     LAS for overlap tests

ALL  provide comments on photometric calibration paper by end of next week  

JRL  check why pipeline catalogue software and toolkit give different 
     results in a few specific cases 


New actions

MJI  check plone technical pages WCS howto

MJI  acquire transmission curves for VIRCAM Z and N118 filters

JRL  backup UKIRT cass archive

MJI  check what SDSS do about elliptical apertures

PSB  review and send off wishlist of observations for next cold VIRCAM run

RGM  check and acquire as necessary updated SMPs for VISTA public surveys
MJI

PSB  investigate new colour printer options and report back at next meeting