=============================================================================== UK issues in relation to the 32nd ESO Users Committee - JvL, 19 March 2008 =============================================================================== Minutes of ESO Council meeting 4/5 December 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard Wade was re-elected President of ESO Council. Monica Tosi (Italy) has replaced Simon Morris as Chair of the OPC. VISTA as UK in-kind contribution to ESO is being re-evaluated, and possible compensation items are being considered. Israel has expressed interest in joining ESO. Site testing for ELT continues near Paranal, La Silla, Morocco and La Palma (the latter face delay because of delays in FP6 deliveries). EELT preparation was selected as a 5 Meuro FP7 programme. The total effort is 6.01 Meuro of which UK has a 16.4 per cent share (1 Meuro). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Poll 2008 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A total of 40 UK users completed the questionnaire, a few more than last year. But not many responses came in after a general announcement to the entire UK astronomical community; only after reminding the UK PIs did many more arrive. 151 unique PIs were counted, so the response rate was 1 in 4 (at best). The majority had service mode observations rather than visitor mode. The questionnees were generally quite successful proposal writers: about 2 in 3. But they only consider that "reasonable". The main issue UK users have is with the delay in access to their data. Their experience with Gemini is much better (days of delivery, not end-of-semester). Now that the user portal has arrived, this issue should be addressed. Delay in access to data has serious negative consequences for scientific exploitation (e.g. GRBs!) and followup. The user portal has resulted in mixed experiences, from applause to despair. ESO pipelines are not thought highly of. It is hoped that by developping scientific pipelines ADPs will become availabel, and vice versa. It is rather difficult to understand how many users can write their own software quicker than get an ESO pipeline to work (properly). There was a request for more help (manual?) on data reduction as this is what users tend to spend more time on. ADPs are welcomed, for instance explicitly for FEROS, UVES, LABOCA, FORS2 (GOODS), VIMOS (zCOSMOS), KMOS in future, in fact it was suggested that new instruments should come with a valid scientific pipeline (to be maintained) and that large programmes should deliver ADPs. It is imperative that it is made clear how the ADPs were created, as these might not be suitable to everyone's needs. By the way most questionnees did not know what ADPs are. With regard to the OPC, many users understand the limitations of panels having to assess many proposals, but some were dismayed about mistakes (visibility of targets was questionned unjustifiably, for instance). It was suggested to give PIs a chance to respond to initial, pre-OPC feedback, as used to be the case in UK panels. This would obviously increase the load on the OPC, but could avoid problems. Most requests for improved feedback are already endorsed by the OPC (I can say this having been at both sides of the fence now). A useful request was that a specific reason be given if a highly ranked proposal is not scheduled. There was one serious allegation (although the questionnee seemed to accept it as the nature of the game), about politics influencing decisions of the OPC. For instance in the case of GRB followup programmes, where there are a few competing programmes from different countries. If this is true this is totally unacceptable. Remarks about the proposal forms included the lack of a category for purely technical programmes, ToO proposals that cannot request multiple instruments, and the impossibility of asking for less than 10 hours for instance for a long-term monitoring programme that only needs occasional brief measurements. The latter point was made by two questionnees. Also, the requirements on the findercharts are too restrictive, and there is no support for MACs. EMMI will be sorely missed by two questionnees, but they may not be aware that EFOSC2 has taken its place. There was a separate request from outside the Poll for SOFI to be maintained as a valuable followup instrument to imaging surveys with VISTA (and UKIDSS) - ISAAC is not always needed for the brighter targets. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End-of-mission reports - La Silla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I counted only 19 EOM reports from UK-affiliated astronomers (including ING). Support and logistics in general were rated good to excellent by everyone. The main "complaint" is with respect to the very slow network connection to the outside world. Also, more than one astronomer would like to see more general purpose user machines at the Ritz. People were generally not impressed by the on-line pipelines, but the impression is that they may not be expecting much, which might be based on previous experience. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End-of-mission reports - Paranal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I counted only 9 EOM reports from UK-affiliated astronomers. Generally people were impressed or just happy, but in a few cases there was a clear lack of instructions as to the procedures for travel, leaving Paranal et cetera. In two cases the daytime support could have been better (dedicated and informed). There were no complaints about the network - one user compared it to La Silla and found it superior at Paranal. But there were "complaints" about the difficulty of communicating between laptops and visitor machines and thus data transfer. Although more flexibility with adding extra targets was asked for, on the other hand there was also praise for adding late backup targets, for instance. UT2 was idle without reason - seems a waste? ===============================================================================