CASB Report November, 2001

Highlights for Division Meeting

· Restored GAMMA2 scanning machine to production scanning.

· Started processing POSS Quick V plates.

Community Affairs and Communications

· Web access to the GSC2 public release has continued to be heavy.

Project Management and Technical Infrastructure

· Updated GSC-II project plan in response to staff departures and delay in survey completion by AAO

· Antonio Volpicelli, whose primary function at STScI is GALAX support, also plans to install CIQA on COMPASS.

· McLean and Greene continued supporting SDSS planning activities.

MISSION SUPPORT

HST Operations

· Reviewed 7 new Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period. All of these were fine lock failures. Filed a Bad GS Alert for each of the GSs.

· Continued planning to port the GetImage software to the Windows NT server.

· HUGS2 working group preparing draft to circulate to a wider distribution for comments.

NGST Development Studies

· Continued to evaluate CSA guide star availability estimates.

DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY

Plate Scanning

· Received a shipment of UKST-IR and UKST–SR plates from ROE.

· Continued scanning POSSI-O plates until the new ROE shipment was available.

GAMMA Microdensitometer Systems

· Restored GAMMA2 to production scanning. GAMM2 had been down since the end of March with several problems including unstable table motion and corrupted data. Events leading to this restoration follow:

· Greene, Laidler, Loomis, Ray, and Sturch met November 9 to try to resolve the GAMMA2 problems. They decided to replace the 1/n card in the servo box with a spare, but the spare was incompatible, resulting in a failed test scan The old 1/n card was returned and they attempted a test scan that also failed. They rebooted the CAMAC and tested the ppg and fifo directly using IDL. Both components seemed to be working and another scan was attempted resulting in a new symptom: the data values were saturated.

· On November 13, Loomis was able to verify that the photometric components of the system were working. After he rebooted several pieces of equipment he was able to get back to the original conditions of the previous week. After a couple of test scans he was very surprised to find that one of the multi-channel scans actually had the image data assembled in the correct order. The shutter mechanism was not working properly and he had to reboot the servos as well as the power to the console, but eventually he started a scan that ran to completion with acceptable data.

· Since mid-November GAMMA2 has produced over 20 acceptable production scans.

· Experiencing disk problems with PIXEL2, which controls GAMMA2. So far the problems have not impacted scanning. The available space for scans has been reduced and extra effort is needed to insure seamless scan production.

· Took GAMMA1 out of service to perform preventative maintenance. Mechanical work is in progress and should be completed in a day or two barring any unforeseen problems.

Data Compression/CD Production

· Continued compressing scans of the POSSII-N and the POSSI-O surveys.

Archive Maintenance

· CSID replaced the PC workstation NYARA with a UNIX Sparc station and mounted the one working CDROM jukebox on this machine. NFS mounted the CASB RAID TEC device to NYARA as well. Wrote and tested a new UNIX script utilizing the TAR command.

· The compressed data of the DSS1, DQVS and XDSS is again being copied or verified.

· Worked on one archive help desk request for help/information.

· Continued low-level rationalization of MOD archive.

GSC-II

Plate Processing and COMPASS Database

· Started processing POSS Quick V plates. Analyzed the processing results of the first 20 plates and adopted minor modifications to the processing script for this survey. Subsequently reprocessed these plates.

· Construction of an astrometric mask from the POSS Quick V plate solution residuals is in progress.

CALIBRATIONS: General

· Tested photometric zero points variations and completeness of GSC 2.2.01 with respect to SDSS data.

· A complete check concerning the homogeneity of the GSC2 objects deduced by field of sky of 10x10 degrees of the GSC2.2 release is in progress. Preliminary results have been shown in the recent GSC2 meeting held in Barolo and OATo last October.

CALIBRATIONS: Astrometry

CALIBRATIONS: Classification

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

· J. Garcia finished reducing CTIO Run 23 (from July) including four nights of photometric quality. Added or replaced 48 GSPC-II fields. Also received more data from La Palma observations.

· Garcia starting a CTIO 0.9 m observing run December 2.

GSC-II Science

· Halo white dwarf project. - We had a TNG run in November 17-18 but we had bad weather and we only got one spectra - however, it is a new WD with a very short Halpha line!! This is a confirmation that the sample was very good and we hope to get more spectra during the APO run in December. The Cdwarf letter is nearly completed and we expect to submit it in the middle of December.

Appendix – CASB Statistical Summary

SCANNING

Survey		Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-II J	897		902	0	902	100	S4	1
POSS-II F	897		910	0	910	100	S4	1
POSS-II N	897		880	0	880	98	S4	1
AAO-SES	606		614	0	614	100	S4	1
PPARC-ER	288		288	0	288	100		1
AAO-SR	118		118	0	118	100	S2	-
UKST-SR	112		50	0	50	45	S5	3
UKST-IR	894		796	0	796	89	S6	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		374	43	417	45		3
Rescans			34	1	35

• 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.
• 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.
• S6. Includes UKST-IR plates from the SERC I/SR Atlas of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds (1978-1985) and the I-Survey of the Southern Sky (1990-xx).

COMPRESSION

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-II J	897	895	0	897	100		2
POSS-II F	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II N	897	764	40	804	90		3
AAO SES	606	606	0	606	100		1
PPARC ER	288	288	0	288	100		1
AAO-SR	118	118	0	118	100		3
UKST-IR	894	697	17	714	80		3
POSS-I O	936	101	0	101	11		3

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	900	0	900	100		3
POSS-II N	897	833	0	833	93		4
AAO-SES	606	613	0	613	100		3
PPARC-ER	288	288	0	288	100		3
AAO-SR	109	116	0	116	100		4
UKST-IR	894	697	31	728	81		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-I O	936	120	0	120	13		5
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	931	0	931	99		3
POSS-QV	611	2	53	55	9		3
POSS-II J	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II F	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II N	897	331	19	350	39		4
SERC-J/EJ	894	829	0	829	93		1
South-F	894	894	0	894	100		1
UKST-IR	894	392	7	399	45		4
South-SR	116	116	0	116	100		2
South-QV	94	94	0	94	100		2
POSS-I O	936	15	2	17	2		5

GSC-II COMPASS DATABASE LOAD (no.objects = 998,402,801)

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I E	936	23	0	23	2		3
POSS-QV	613	2	0	2	0		3
POSS-II J	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II F	897	899	0	899	100		1
POSS-II N	897	27	0	27	3		4
SERC-J	894	709	0	709	79		1
South-F	894	742	0	742	83		1
UKST-IR	894	2	0	2	0		4
South-SR	116	116	0	116	100		2
South-QV	94	90	0	90	96		2

GSPC-II OBSERVATIONS

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I	584	603	0	603	100	P1	1
POSS-II	314	271	0	271	86		1
SERC	894	889	0	889	99		1

GSPC-II REDUCTIONS

Survey	Goal	Previous Month	Current Month	Current Total	% done	Notes	Priority
POSS-I	584	603	1	601	100	P1	1
POSS-II	314	271	7	278	88		1
SERC	894	905	40	945	100		1

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