CASB Report for August, 2000

Highlights for Division Meeting

· Completed the export of GSC2.1.1 into FITS files from COMPASS and delivered to GEMINI, VLT, and OATo on DLT.

· Final POSS-II J plate received – completes all-sky J coverage.

Community Affairs and Communications

· McLean presented GSC-II papers at Data Mining meeting in Garching and the Wide Field Astronomy meeting in Preston.

· Discussion with AAO director (Boyle) resulted in tentative agreement for UKSTU to complete missing POSS-II IV-N fields.

· B. Bucciarelli visited from OATo and edited the GSPC-II publication.

· Conducted tours of CASB for the STScI family day.

· Continued review of the CASB WWW pages.

Project Management and Technical Infrastructure

· Continued planning for the 6^th annual GSC-II meeting, scheduled for Oct 19-20 2000.

MISSION SUPPORT

HST Operations

· Reviewed eleven Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period. Of these problems, eight were fine lock failures due to close binaries and the other three GSs were fainter than expected. Two of the latter GSs are embedded in nebulosity making brightness determination difficult and the third was a misclassified blend of stars. A Bad GS Alert was filed for each GS.

· Investigated two different GS problems in failed HST attempts of observations in the globular cluster Omega Cen. Both GSs were taken from GSC-I. Made a detailed comparison between the GSC-I region and ZZR, the special catalog for Omega Cen derived from a CTIO 4-meter plate. Recommended that all observers specify the ZZR catalog in Phase 2 for proposals in this area.

· Continuing work on the Bright Object tool for the Visual TargetTuner (VTT). Doggett and Asbury tentatively estimate a completion date of mid-February at the latest. Currently in the middle of the actual coding of the Bright Object tool, following the agreed upon design.

· Morrison prepared a white paper on the guide star catalog for NGST and submitted it to the NGST Operations Concept Committee. Sections of this document will go into the NGST Operations Concept. This document will be placed on the CASB web site after its completion.

· Performed a test on selecting targets and associated guide stars for NEXXUS alignment test using the Tycho-2 catalog. Found a distribution of pairs for target stars brighter than 10th magnitude.

· Prepared a plan to migrate DSS data from CDROM to hard disk. The plan will be implemented as soon as possible.

DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY

Plate Scanning

· Continued scanning POSSII-N plates at the beginning of the period and then started scanning the latest shipment of UKST-IR plates.

· Sent a large shipment of scan tapes to Cal Tech, including 10 replacement tapes for old unreadable tapes.

GAMMA Microdensitometer Systems

· Quickly corrected the water damage to GAMMA2 reported last month. The electronics were removed, cleaned and reinstalled. Found that scan data were then noisier than before the incident, but determined that the cause was a loose ground wire that was soon repaired.

· Later performed minor adjustment to GAMMA2 laser positioning through the neutral density filter set. Two plates required rescans due to misalignment and clipping of the beam due to the alignment problem.

· Currently performance is nominal for both GAMMAs.

Data Compression/CD Production

· Started compressing scans of the UKST-IR survey. Modified the compression code to allow the IS prefix for this survey.

· Continued compression of the POSSII-N scans.

Archive Maintenance

· Rewrote all but three of the scan MODs with known problems. Investigating problems with the last three.

· Continued writing MODs of UKST-IR scans.

Software Development

· No progress reported in investigation of a GETIMAGE failure with the DSS-I, first reported by the NAOJ Astronomical Data Analysis Center.

GSC-II

Plate Processing

· Essentially completed processing of the POSSI-red plates with only a handful of fields remaining. Several of these plates will require rescanning.

· Began COMPASS plate loading.

· Coupled plate loading activity with photometric and astrometric recalibrations to ensure that newly loaded plates receive current calibrations.

· Coordinated plate loading activity with data loading into the HSM system of various processing files (e.g.. cutout images, sky model files...).

COMPASS Database

· Completed the export of GSC2.1.1 into FITS files from COMPASS. The storage requirement for this subset of the catalog is 56.1 GB. This includes1892 calibrated and cross-matched plates, with approximately 399.4 million sources with multiple bandpasses.

· Detail enhanced WWW documentation for the GSC2.1.1 to include links references to the source calibration, HTM partitioning, and sky coverage.

· The export production discovered ten corrupted database files. Further investigation into these files is in process.

· Delivered GSC2.1.1 to GEMINI, VLT, and OATo on DLT.

· Currently revising the Object Matching production task to use the HTM indexing for more efficient and faster cross-matching. This will provide a single task means for cross-mapping plate and/or external reference catalogs into the COMPASS master source index.

· As part of the continuation of consulting arrangements with Wil O'Mullane, expanded the JAVA ShowSky image and catalog visualization tool to include simultaneous access to GSC-2 export catalog, COMPASS, DSS 1 and 2, GSC-1, Hipparcos, and Tycho. The SDSS Science Archive access was designed and implementation is being developed in coordination with JHU.

· Delivered and installed the ShowSky 2.0 to several internal GSC-II team collaborators for review.

· Ran database defragmentation on COMPASS to reclaim all disk space following the final calibration tasks.

CALIBRATIONS: Astrometry

CALIBRATIONS: Classification

· Designed a FITS file to be used with the classification suite of programs, including RANK_FEATURES, CLASSIFY, the OC1 decision tree generating program, and the training set file utilities. This file will ultimately contain information about classes, features, and training set distribution, as well as the decision tree itself. It will support versatile experiments with different numbers of features and classifications.

· Modifying the OC1 decision tree program to output the decision tree into a FITS file. This required solving several technical problems with regard to compiling and linking with the appropriate version of the CFITSIO library.

· Reviewed the CLASSIFY task and identified lines of code that need to be changed to support flexibility in classes and features.

CALIBRATIONS: Photometry (GSPC-II and DSS-I and -II)

· B. Bucciarelli from OATo visited STScI and worked with CASB staff, reviewing and editing the paper, “GSPC2.1: First Release of an All-Sky Set of (B)-V-R Photometric Calibrators for Schmidt Surveys.” The paper describes the GSC-II program, data reduction, and the quality of the photometric sequences. It will be submitted soon to “Astronomy and Astrophysics.” Along with this publication, 623 GSPC-II sequences will be released and made available through ftp from both STScI and OATo.

CALIBRATIONS: Apply_Calibs:

GSC-II General Software Development

GSC-II Science

· Prepared four MODs for Daniela Carollo’s science project and sent them to OATo.

· In collaboration with Mignani, we are trying to evaluate the proper motion of a black hole located in the binary system, N23203203594 (11:18:10.77 +48:02:12.25). The GSC-II coordinates for this object from different epochs are very important. The science involved is extremely appealing because it may contribute to the theory of black hole evolution. We now have a rough value of its pm, but are working on a more precise value.

· Spectra of a number of candidate high proper motion stars were obtained with the APO 3.5m telescope. Data is still being reduced.

· Scanned two plates and rescanned a third for two scientific collaborations: the above project with Mignani and another with van Altena at Yale, distinguishing QSOs from galactic stars via proper motions.

Appendix – CASB Statistical Summary

SCANNING

Survey		Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-II J	897		901	0	901	100	S4	1
POSS-II F	897		910	0	910	100	S4	1
POSS-II N	897		838	9	847	94		1
AAO-SES	606		606	0	606	100	S4	1
PPARC-ER	288		270	0	270	94		1
AAO-SR	118		118	0	118	100	S2	-
UKST-SR	112		50	0	50	45	S5	3
UKST-IR	894		462	53	515	58		2
SERC-J/EJ	447		443	0	443	99	S1	2
POSS-I E	106		106	0	106	100	S3	3
POSS-I O	936		175	2	177	19		3
Rescans			24	1	23

• S1. Low priority program to rescan crowded fields (|b|<30) originally done with 25 mu scans. The total number of S scans includes the 2 for the LMC and SMC plus 4 others with |b|>30 performed for research or STIS BOP support. Another 30 plates have been added to replace those that were repaired before inclusion in DSS-I.
• S2. This survey is an on-going low level-of-effort collaboration between the STScI and the AAO. About 25-50 plates have been added in each of the past few years.
• S3. Low priority scans of the POSS-I -24 deg and -30 deg zones.
• S4. Includes recent scans of better grade plates.
• S5. Low priority scans of the moderately-short exposure R plates from the SERC I/SR Atlas of the Milky Way.

COMPRESSION

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-II J	897	893	4	897	100		2
POSS-II F	897	897	0	897	100	C1	1
POSS-II N	897	251	40	291	32		3
AAO SES	606	572	0	572	94		1
PPARC ER	288	245	0	245	85		1
UKST-IR	894	0	28	28	3		3

• C1. Completed in May, 2000, but not included in the earlier report.

MO DISK ARCHIVING

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-II J	897	902	0	902	100		4
POSS-II F	897	878	0	878	98		3
POSS-II N	897	278	11	289	32		4
AAO-SES	606	587	0	587	97		3
PPARC-ER	288	250	0	250	87		3
AAO-SR	109	73	0	73	67		4
UKST-IR	894	149	176	325	36		5
SERC-J/EJ	894	892	0	892	100
SERC-J/REPAIR	48	48	0	48	100
SERC-J/15mu	449	449	0	449	100		5
POSS-I E	933	928	0	928	99		2
POSS-I REPAIR	198	198	0	198	100		2
POSS-QV	613	613	0	613	100		-
SERC-QV	94	94	0	94	100		-
GPO/BB	88	88	0	88	100		-

GSC-II PLATE PROCESSING

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I E	936	880	37	917	94	G1	3
POSS-QV	613	2	0	2	0		3
POSS-II J	897	887	0	887	99		1
POSS-II F	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II N	897	44	0	44	5		4
SERC-J/EJ	894	822	0	822	92		1
South-F	894	815	0	815	91		1
UKST-IR	894	2	0	2	0		4
South-SR	118	110	0	110	93		2
South-QV	94	94	0	94	100		2

· G1. POSS-I E totals include 66 plates processed before 2000 that will be reprocessed.

GSC-II COMPASS DATABASE LOAD (total number entries = 1,089,000,000)

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I E	880	5	0	5	1		3
POSS-QV	613	2	0	2	0		3
POSS-II J	897	511	42	553	62		1
POSS-II F	897	743	41	784	87		1
POSS-II N	897	4	0	4	0		4
SERC-J	894	128	3	131	15		1
South-F	894	473	22	495	55		1
UKST-IR	894	0	0	0	0		4
South-SR	109	13	1	14	13		2
South-QV	94	57	10	67	71		2

GSC-II Dataset for V2.1.n delivery (1791 Fields, 3438 plates) (P1)

Item	Count	% done	Notes
Plates available	3417	99
Plates processed	3355	98
DB Load	1907	55
Current Calibration or Recalibration	1887	55

• P1. Defined as all 897 POSS-II fields with 1794 plates, plus the 894 southern

Fields, minus the 72 southern equatorial fields, with 1644 plates.

GSPC-II OBSERVATIONS

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I	584	559	0	559	96	P1	1
POSS-II	314	169	0	169	54		1
SERC	894	868	0	868	97		1

GSPC-II REDUCTIONS

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I	584	559	0	559	99	P1	1
POSS-II	314	169	0	169	54		1
SERC	894	868	0	868	97		1

• P1. The current totals have been revised from earlier ones.