UKIDSS Newsletter No. 6

From: Andy Lawrence, Steve Warren

September 2002

1. Consortium structure: working groups, list of observers, mailing list

Urgent: Now that the UKIDSS mailing list has grown to 80 we need to create some Consortium structure. We need to:

• form a list of survey observers: the Consortium needs to guarantee to the Board that the survey effort is there. This can be achieved if about 40 volunteers now guarantee that they will be available to observe for 7-night stints in both 2004 and 2005, subject to reasonable restrictions on the dates. This would give us about twice the effort actually needed, and so provide sufficient flexibility to schedule the observing.
• define the following working groups (~5 members each):
  1. LAS science
  2. GPS science
  3. GCS science
  4. DXS science
  5. UDS science
  6. Pipeline and archive
  7. Calibration
  8. Implementation
  We need Consortium members to volunteer to populate these 8 working groups. Please don't be shy.

To be involved in either you need, by the end of September, to contact the Survey Scientist sjw4@ic.ac.uk and:

1. agree to observing effort as defined above
2. volunteer to join one or more of the working groups, preferably providing a few sentences explaining your interest and expertise

Here is a brief list of some of the tasks that are needed from the different working groups.

• Groups 1-5: Create the MSBs i.e. the actual detailed sequences of observations for the first two-year plan. Prepare proposals for further complementary multiwavelength data as appropriate. Continue to develop the science case. Develop a strategy for maximising the science exploitation.
• Group 6: Redraft the Science Requirements Document for the pipeline and archive i.e. specifying the performance of the pipeline and the content and functionality of the archive. A draft is currently in preparation, but it will need careful refining, considering amongst other items the required photometric measures for each detected object. This part of the work will need to be completed over the next few weeks.
• Group 7: This group exists but anyone keen to contribute is welcome to volunteer. See note about Skyprobe below.
• Group 8: We need to specify the software tools to be available to the Survey Manager, and to anyone interested in monitoring the progress of the surveys.

2. Two-year plans

The 2-year plans were submitted to the UKIRT Board on 8 July. The report included a study of the scheduling issues. From this it is apparent that it would not be possible to complete the UDS 2-year plan if WFCAM is scheduled in a way that results in uniform coverage over the calendar, but that feasible solutions exist provided WFCAM is on the telescope proportionally more in the Autumn months, when the UDS is overhead. JAC were requested to implement a schedule which would allow the completion of each of the 2-year plans, including the UDS. There are new survey web pages which detail the UKIDSS 7-year and 2-year plans.

3. Filters

Subaru have generously offered to manufacture custom filters for WFCAM, on a best-efforts basis. If you have a suggestion for a special filter other than the current set of YJHK, please get in touch with Mark Casali, the WFCAM Project Scientist.

4. Photometric conditions and Skyprobe

Because the LAS, GPS, and GCS require photometric conditions we ideally need to know in real time whether the conditions are photometric in order to use the time efficiently (unlike SDSS we can't pick and choose the nights we take images). Solutions to this problem include checking against 2MASS stars, and monitoring the autoguider trace. CFHT have come up with a different solution, a camera called Skyprobe, that generated a lot of interest at the August SPIE meeting. They claim that Skyprobe provides them with a measurement of the attenuation due to clouds in the field currently being observed to an accuracy of 0.007 mag.

The ATC are currently considering the feasibility/desirability of providing such a camera for UKIRT. The Skyprobe paper is available on the Consortium internal page. If you have an opinion on this matter please communicate it to Mark Casali.

5. Publicity

For information, articles on UKIDSS have appeared in the latest UKIRT Newsletter, the July issue of the ESO Messenger, and a talk was presented at the SPIE conference in Hawaii in August. The Messenger artcile can be found at the ESO web site. The SPIE article is available on the Consortium internal page.

6. University of Hawaii

Andy Lawrence and Steve Warren visited the University of Hawaii on Aug 23rd to discuss possible collaboration on UKIDSS. We had a wide ranging discussion covering various possible models of collaboration, including participation in one or all of the surveys by some or all of the U of H staff. The purpose of the meeting was to initiate a debate within the U of H which would lead to a proposal from them. This will be put to the Consortium if and when it is received.