UKON Telecon 29/04/14 14:00-16:00 ------------ Attendees: Alfonso Aragon-Salamanca (AAS) Sharon Bonfield (SB) Andy Bunker (part, AB) Sarah Casewell (SC) Michele Cirasuolo (MC) Dave Clements (DC) Paul Crowther (PC) Isobel Hook (IH) Rubina Kotak (RK) Andrew Levan (AL) Jacco van Loon (JvL) Simon Morris (SM) Paul O'Brien (part, PO) Pat Roche (PRP Anne Sansom (AS) Ray Sharples (RS) Ian Smail (IS) Mark Swinbank (MS) Aprajita Verma (AV) Apologies: Chris Collins, Christopher Watson, Gary Fuller -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGENDA ------ 14:00-14:10 - Introduction (Verma) 14:10-14:30 - ESO (Pat Roche) 14:30-14:50 - ELT Project/Instrumentation Update (Isobel Hook) 14:50-15:10 - UKIRT & JCMT Update (Pat Roche) 15:10-15:35 - STFC Updates & Comments on Programmatic Review including LT and LSST update (Sharon Bonfield) 15:35-15:45 - ING update & Northern Access Discussion (Verma) 15:45-16:00 - AOB/Dates for next meeting -------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction (Verma) Aim to have 2 meetings per year, typically April & October. Additional meetings may be held if needed, but this isn't expected to be the case. Welcome Sharon Bonfield (STFC), Ian Smail (ESO STC rep.) to the group. Membership review to include as many UK astro departments as possible will take place. Any members wishing step down should mail Chair. LSST representative deferred until outcome of PPRP known. Main driver of he committee is to provide user input to telescope boards and committees. Issues that may come up, LSST & CTA proposals going to PPRP, and BIS Capital Consultation call. Agenda approved with addition of Michele Cirasuolo (MOONS & KMOS) -------------------------------------------------------------------- ESO (Pat Roche) ALMA: - ALMA has had lots of downtime (weather & technical) but the situation is improving. Early science delayed by several months, high priority incomplete programmes will be carried over. - There have been issues with getting the advertised number of antennas operations (30, typically 25-27 available). - All construction is essentially complete except the resedencia that costs more than expected, adding pressure to the ESO budget. - ALMA Science archive now available. - PR no longer on ALMA board, check web pages for membership. APEX: - Operations extended until 2017 by agreement between MPfIR & ESO. - Next semester will see increased capability through instruments ARTEMIS (bolometer array) & SEPIA (heterodyne) VLT: - KMOS completing commissioning and now available for proposals. Project is widely regarded well done and well managed. - MUSE commissioning has begun - SPHERE has been delivered to the telescope, a few months behind GPI. - VLT laser upgraded, more stable and less support needed than its predecessor. - Tensions in the instrument programme between NaCo & future instrument ERIS (that includes AO-fed camera), currently being discussed at STC. ERIS not expected until 2019. As this is too late for the Galactic Centre stellar encounter there is a proposal to extend SINFONI & NACO to 2018. - CRIRES plan to increase capability, upgrade requires it to be removed from telescope for 4 years from 2014. - VISIR going back on the telescope in October VLTI: - PRIMA may possibly be discontinued due to GAIA rapidly covering the primary science case (positional variations due to planets). - GRAVITY & MATISSE are both under constructions, GRAVITY o be delivered next year. Currently on schedule but getting them to perform will be challenging. E-ELT: - ESO proposal has been approved by two out of three government committees, currently under review by the third. ESO overall: - New headquarters ready and fully occupied. - New Science Strategy Working Group is concerned with ESO's role in astronomy in Europe. Includes discussion of CTA site (Paranal & Namibia) and ESOs role as a pontential host or operator. Also top-level strategic view of extending ESO's role inn to the European SKA effort, LSST & ASTRONET etc. - NTT instrument proposals: Currently under STC consideration them. Some concerns regarding the very short timescale to respond to this call for new instrument concepts. Visiting instruments or large science projects could have been proposed that would not be affected by the short response time. PR regards this as means to poll the community to see what ideas are being considered. There is a new 3D spectrographs being built for the NTT by the Marseille group. No clear view on how many UK groups responded. DC: ESO Data Reduction pipeline software needs to be made compatible with Mac OS. ESO UC issue, individuals and UKON send comment to Gary Fuller, UC representative. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-ELT: Isobel Hook Slides: https://groups.physics.ox.ac.uk/ukon/minutes/2014_04/IHook_ELT_UKON_apr14.pdf - Overall: ESO Council approved start of the E-ELT programme funded through partner contributions. Preparatory work started (infrastructure & access road, site blast planned for week of June 16th 2014) but no large contracts let until 90% of the funding is in place. Awaiting Brazilian parliament to complete ratification procedure - Instrumentation plan: MICADO and HARMONI concepts going ahead, with associated AO systems. At least one of MIR, HIRES and MOS, with an open slot for new concepts (ELT-6). Exo-planet characterisation instrument, full suite to be built up over a decade. Updated roadmap see IHs slides. - PST: UK members include IH, Rubina Kotak, Didier Queloz, Niranjan Thatte as PI of HARMONI. The PST will take on the role to follow the progress of instruments, as well as considering operations modes. Recent work has focussed on defining instrument top-level requirements to start negotiations with instrument teams for what will actually be built. - UK E-ELT Programme Coordinates all E-ELT instrument efforts, includes project office, project science & industrial liaison. Bulk of work on HARMONI, see Isobel's slides for more info. - UK E-ELT Project Office supported METIS UK Science workshop at the Open University (Helen Fraser & AV). Raised issue of cross-dispersed mode to increase the instantaneous wavelength coverage of the L&M band IFS, providing direct UK community inout to the project. - Industrial liaison: Various industry days held - Input to STFCs Programmatic Review ranked alpha5 - Upcoming Meetings: Galway: Speed & Sensitivity 13-16 May 2014, RASPUTIN 13-17 Oct 2014, First Science / HARMONI workshop July 2015, Solar System Dec 2015 DC Q: What are the plans for E-ELT instrument data reduction software? For the VLT, consortia are typically expected to produce a pipeline for DQ assessment. Typically they deliver above that. DC concerned that not having a DR pipeline in the instrument contracts was a risk. AS Q: Where were the industry day workshops held? , across the UK? Several, Wales, Edin and London. SB remarked UK T&I features E-ELT in the their industry roadshow events -------------------------------------------------------------------- KMOS (Michele Cirasuolo) - 2nd generation instrument for the VLT, NIR spectrograph with 24 deployable IFUs (PI R. Sharples). Finished commissioning last April. KMOS very successful and reported to be one of the best instruments delivered to Paranal. SV July last year (P92), and offered for observing since P93. Issues on vibrations disturbing VLTI operations now solved. Preliminary Acceptance Chile expected soon, (signing the instrument over to Paranal). - AV enquired about KMOS DR software in light of DCs earlier question: MC & RS reported KMOS delivered pipeline ESO Rex written by MPE, delivering products for quality assessment & science. KMOS also had an instrument simulator ahead of delivery/commissioning to check performance, so the pipeline was already in a good state at commissioning. -------------------------------------------------------------------- MOONS (Michele Cirasuolo) - Third gen. opt/NIR MOS for the VLT, lead by the UK in collaboration with other European countries. Provides spectra of 1000 objects simultaneously. Approved by ESO last year, and funding for hardware is approved. Expect to sign contract in June. Technical work and specifications are being finalised ahead of the contract signatures. Expected operations in 2019. -------------------------------------------------------------------- UKIRT & JCMT (Pat Roche) Management of withdrawal from Hawaii - UKIRT Operations and lease has been reverted to the UoH for including an agreement on decommissioning costs pending further agreements on the future of the telescope. A consortium of University of Arizona (regular science) & Lockheed Martin (space debris monitoring) will take over the telescope (see https://www.stfc.ac.uk/3519.aspx). The Cass. instrumentation suite may be reinstated. CASU/WFAU will continue to process data. As a consequence there may be opportunity for UK astronomers to retain some involvement with UKIRT (may be in the order of ~10-20n TBC). More than half the time will be available for science programmes (e.g. completion of J-band hemisphere survey, interest from PANSTARRS). Staff retention high, through Gary Davis' hard work & communication and will transfer to new operating institute. Some concern regarding CASU/WFAU future but given roles in VISTA & GAIA there is no immediate threat. - JCMT: Withdrawal by Dutch (last year), Canada (next 6 months) therefore continued operations would mean the entire running costs would lie on STFC. East Asian consortium, process still under way with a deadline for operation proposals is end of next week. At least 1 bid from an East Asian (EACOA) consortium (Taiwan, Japan, Korea?) with possibly UK & CA continued involvement that would allow a period of collaboration and knowledge transfer. Walter Gear running a process to garner interest from individual Universities, will bid for matched funds from STFC through PPRP. Aim to retain involvement for the next 2-3 years. STFC would be prepared to match up to 250K, bringing total to £500K, for a ~30% share (mostly continuation of legacy programmes and PI programmes) -------------------------------------------------------------------- STFC Update (Sharon Bonfield) Slides: https://groups.physics.ox.ac.uk/ukon/minutes/2014_04/SBonfield_UKON_apr14.pdf - CSR - flat cash overall for science, allocation from BIS for research councils capped. 14/15 settlement not being, good 15/16 flat cash settlements. Obvious pressure due to inflation, and expect shortfall in the programme. Things more positive on the capital side due to funding and kick-off of projects discussed between STF & BIS (who recognise TSFC portfolio is capital intensive). - £75m Newton fund announced over all areas to collaborate with developing nations. STFC looking into direct requests for that. - Core programme £1.65M for the 15/16 delivery plan, £53.5M capital. - Programmatic review published, to guide BIS, goal to get approval at Council in May, will also include decisions on time critical programmes (e.g. LT) - BIS capital consultation, launched last Friday, balance regional and large scale international projects. STFC looking into priorities for UK investment and organising science board and advisory panel to coordinate input. Individual inputs also encouraged. Later discussion with SB&PO) AAP, SSAP meetings on Thursday 22nd & Friday 23rd May. Main item to discuss on capital documents, any other projects can be suggested and encourage presentation at the town meetings. There will be an interaction stage with BIS ahead of the consultations. Document pertaining to the capital consultation circulated to the astro-community web list on 25th April by Gemma Ladd. There is a short timescale for response (July). Science board will meet before June to submit the STFC proposals, individuals can submit up to the end of July. Need to give priorities between projects not jus a shopping list. Some funds may be held back for later in the decade for new projects. - ESO-E-ELT: going through PPRP in July. - SKA: Matthew Johnson STFC programme manager stated couple of weeks ago, main goal to secure SKA HQ in the UK. Matthew could peak to this group if required. - ING: negotiations ongoing, legal docs are with the lawyers, converging on various funding streams. - Peer Review system - MOONS moving out - Advance Tech Solar telescope going to the visiting panel - DESI peer review July - LSST:UK end of summer (150K to join), plan to make decision before end of the year. STFC looking at the larger role of the project (e.g. big data processing, capital prioritisation), funds cannot come out of the normal allocation. - Liverpool Telescope: ranked medium priority, outreach aspects noted as a strengths focus on STEM skills & strategy. £250K p.a. for 2 years agreed with other partners, leverage funding from BIS & DoE (start talks imminent). - Q: Emphasis on capital investment versus ongoing science exploitation, and flat cash effectively impacts the exploitation side of the budget. Is this pressure something that BIS/ministers are aware of? SB: many of the other RC are facing the same problems with being capital rich. Get a capital investment for ministerial initiatives that then need to be run and therefore this affects the rest of the programme. It is a problem but the message is being passed on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ING update (Verma) Slides: https://groups.physics.ox.ac.uk/ukon/minutes/2014_04/AVerma_ING_2014_04.pdf - ING update: Please also refer to SBs presentation. Switching ownership to the IAC still leaves a 30% share in the ING through provision of WEAVE and operation costs (until 2017/18. ING is currently undergoing an instrumentation rationalisation process based on community input. Analysis is complete but results not announced yet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northern Access Discussion (Verma) Slides: https://groups.physics.ox.ac.uk/ukon/minutes/2014_04/AVerma_ING_2014_04.pdf - Northern Access: PO asked by Science Board if there is any is there any strong motivation in the community to expand this. Covers change for UKIRT access, WHT access, lack of 8m access. Are ING/WEAVE enough? If not, what should we be trying to do address this. DC It was noted that WEAVE is limited for faint targets (e.g. for deep IR surveys). It's clear that hemisphere access alone is not a strong enough argument to reopen the northern access issue as roughly 2/3 sky is accessible from Southern facilities. DC remarked throwing millions of investment. Arguments would be stronger if there were more voices & parties (e.g. ESO or other European countries) supporting this. ESO has had involvement with GTC but resources devoted to getting the E-ELT working. - Mainly affects GRBs, transients & keep northern hemisphere survey follow-up. Any request for 8m time would require a significant amount of work. Full planning and cost information included can be put to Science Board - it's not ruled although would probably have a low chance of success. - Worth noting that dec<-70 not easily accessible from VLT & proposals requesting time to observe sources close to airmass 2 are unlikely to be selected. - Purchasing time on existing facilities: Possible but would need a compelling science driven case with wide community support. Subaru/Keck not keen for UK participation, same may be true for Gemini. IAC/GranTeCan, concerns expressed that it would be buying into something that's not yet fully operation and but continued presence on La Palma given WEAVE may be a more achievable option. - Some members felt that the access provided through NOAO or US/Japanese collaborations meant the lack of UK dedicated 8m northern access was not really a crippling issue. Several UKON members are involved with EACOA JCMT collaboration or have collaborators that may give access (through collaboration) to Subaru and SCUBA-2. [Note added post meeting: AV discussed with a few members of the transients community and they felt there was no compelling case that required the UK to have dedicated Northern access and could be achieved through collaboration on international facilities. However, AV notes that there may be a community driver that isn't represented in UKON.] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AOB More discussion on capital consultation and what would be classed as capital and what as a resource (two separate streams of government funding). E.g. New telescope would be capital and a new instrument could be capital or resource. Capital fund would not cover running costs. This is the case for LSST, capital fund the data centre and running costs would come through resource allocation. If an instrument was used as part of the in kind cost for a joining a project, this would be funded through rants not capital, and that would have impact on the remainder of the programme (but could build one less E-ELT instrument to fund a new 8m instrument). In principle there is nothing to to stop the community from proposing anything for the capital fund (instrument, purchase of nights, other) but someone needs to take the lead to organise it. Many examples in the consultation document - recommend interested parties consult that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Meeting To be arranged by email. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------