Minutes from July 20 2010.

Here are the minutes of the 8m Users Group telecon held today, Tuesday July 20th 2010. Please keep these minutes within the UK community, they are not public.

Gemini

• As is well know, the UK is withdrawing from the Gemini partnership after 2012B
• Demand for Gemini time is strong, and increasing. Quality of proposals are also increasing. 4.5 pressure in North, 1.8 in the South. Most demand in the UK is for GMOS, accounts for 80% of requested time in the south.
• Now selling (as of 2010B) 70 hr of time to Brazil, this will continue to do so until end of UK involvement
• Gemini is not looking for new partners, but are streamlining their operations by replacing night-time staff with observing staff, no night engineers, implementing remote observing from sea level in near future.

• Instruments

  • GNIRS commissioning occurring at the end of the month (July). May replace NIRI, as spectroscopy mode is not currently working. Status for GNIRS in 2011A will depend on outcome of this commissioning run. If successful, GNIRS may replace NIRI as NIR spectrograph for 2010B approved programmes. NIRI is also becoming quite old and not running as well as it use to. Gemini is unlikely to keep NIRI for much longer
  • GMOS red sensitive CCDs will be installed in November, significant increase in sensitivity
  • Gemini Planet Finder (GPI) - assembly underway, will arrive to Gemini sometime in 2011
  • GeMS for Gemini South (laser) will be commissioned in 2011A
  • FLAMINGOS-2 - has many problems, Gemini has taken over the instrument from the University of Florida. On sky tests in late 2009 very unsatisfactory. Needs major redesign of MOS wheel as well as the cooling system, availability unlikely before 2011B(?)
  • There is a new call for a high-resolution spectrograph to be built

ESO

• Site of ELT picked in Chile, construction 2011-2018, needs 300M Euro more money to begin
• Users can soon write their own software and use pipeline pieces to construct optimal data reduction routines. Will be standard for new instruments.
• Waiting to get Mac support for ESO tools
• Working on: allowing co-Is to obtain data without using PIs account, allowing teams to obtain data night after they are observed, new submission tools
• OPC: increase in proposals, but record still in P84. Telescopes have 2-4 pressure. Triage of proposals works and will remain. OPC Working Group due to make recommendations about the proposal evaluation process - doesn't seem likely though that there will be a major overhaul of proposal evaluation in near future.
• KMOS and MUSE nearing completion. MUSE will replace NACO, and ISAAC will be replaced by Sphere
• Soon there will be no 3-5 um spectroscopy, some concern
• There will be a special call for large spectroscopic programmes will a proposal deadline in April 2011. Likely only one or two programs will be approved.

8-10m Access in North

• STFC is aware of problem and in principle recognises the importance of a Northern 8-10m. Have suggested finding ways to get involved in projects that do not require significant amount of new resources
• Current Northern 8-10m access: UK has Gemini North time until 2012B, 20 nights/semester with Subaru FMOS on for a few years (need clarification on how to apply, etc.)
• Ideas for how to obtain access after this:
  1. Agreement with Spanish for GTC, possibly through existing agreement with ING and/or by helping/leading instrument development. No objection from members of user group on telecon, although process to obtain data in the near future not so clear.
  2. Partnership with institution (UC, Caltech, Japanese) to trade data/time with our existing facilities (JCMT, ING, etc.) for 8-10m time. One problem with this is that SCUBA-2 is delayed and may only be available for ~year at current projections, other telescopes are out of UK portfolio by 2012. Also, international partners might not like idea
  3. Work with UK Space Agency to develop ways to follow up on science missions, such as GAIA. Some interest in this
  4. Stay in Gemini as a very minor partner, and perhaps exchange Gemini-South time with Japanese or another group without southern 8-10m access