CASB Report October, 2001

Highlights for Division Meeting

· Held a productive annual GSC-II meeting, October 22-23, at OATo.

Community Affairs and Communications

· The GSC-II and CASB web services have been under heavy pressure from a particular IP address. The heavy traffic on our web server became so overloaded that the site became unavailable many times in the past several weeks to legitimate GSC2 users. In response, we implemented a block to that IP address as investigation showed an almost "denial of service" style attack on our server.

· We continue to monitor the server’s performance closely. Since the linking of the GSC-II pages to the new STScI home page we have experienced very heavy web traffic.

Project Management and Technical Infrastructure

· Greene, Loomis, McLean, and Rosenberg participated in the 7^th annual GSC-II meeting, October 22-23, at OATo.

· Presentations can be found in the CASB pages under publications. These included:

o Viewing the movie: “The making of the GSC2”;

o Overviews of the database and GSC2.2 catalog;

o GSC2 astrometry;

o Photometry calibrations and accuracy plus GSPC-II status;

o Classification performance;

o Telescope operations;

o Science projects involving GSC2;

o GSC2.2 maintenance and quality assurance.

· Meeting highlights included some GSC-II results in photometry and astrometry that exceeded expectations when compared to accurate external catalogs, and a wonderful time at the Vineyard Marchesi di Barolo.

· CASB staff members thank our hosts at Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino for a very successful meeting.

· McLean and Greene continued supporting SDSS planning activities.

MISSION SUPPORT

HST Operations

· Reviewed 28 new Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period. Of these, 24 were fine lock failures, some extending back nearly a year. Two were search failures that were due to misclassifications in GSC-I. Another was a false lock in a region of nebulosity and the remaining GS had frequent loss of lock due a faint companion. 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 (Hst Using Guide Stars 2) preparing overview of impacts for using GSC-II in HST operations as soon as cycle 12.

NGST Development Studies

· Began reviewing details of NGST FGS study being carried out by the CAS, particularly the apparent discrepancy between predicted stellar number counts compared to Spagna report.

DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY

Plate Scanning

· Continued scanning POSSI-O plates until the next ROE plate shipment arrives. ROE staff members are preparing that shipment now.

GAMMA Microdensitometer Systems

· GAMMA1 continues to perform well.

· No work was performed on GAMMA2 during this period.

Data Compression/CD Production

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

Archive Maintenance

· Problems with remaining data migration continue. A possible solution is for CISD staff to MAP/NFS mount the CASB CDROM jukebox on the NT node NYARA to PIXELA and restart the data migration after that is done.

· Worked on catalog distribution via DLT archive tapes. Implementing a more streamlined, robust and improved method for writing the tapes for distribution. A test is planned in the next week to transfer this task to a Linux server within the guide star sub net. This should improve throughput, reduce Institute network traffic and end competition for the public drives on the science net.

· Collaborated with OATo staff members to provide them with data necessary for high priority science projects.

· Worked on five archive help desk requests for help/information.

GSC-II

Plate Processing and COMPASS Database

· Continued identifying and correcting errors in the GSC-II.

· Rebuilt the fdb access utility, returning more functionality to the COMPASS database and allowing execution of the matching and loading tasks.

CALIBRATIONS: General

CALIBRATIONS: Astrometry

CALIBRATIONS: Classification

· Prepared slides on the GSC2.2 classification for presentation at the GSC-II annual meeting.

· Also prepared slides presenting the benefits of implementing improvements in GSC2.3.

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

GSC-II Science

- See presentations from Annual Meeting

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		768	28	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		359	15	374	40		3
Rescans			34	0	34

• 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	748	16	764	85		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	0	697	78		3
POSS-I O	936	94	7	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	0	697	78		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	100	20	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	613	2	0	2	0		3
POSS-II J	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II F	897	897	0	897	100		1
POSS-II N	897	308	19	327	36		4
SERC-J/EJ	894	829	0	829	93		1
South-F	894	894	0	894	100		1
UKST-IR	894	392	0	392	44		4
South-SR	116	116	0	116	100		2
South-QV	94	94	0	94	100		2
POSS-I O	936	15	0	15	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

GSC-II Dataset for V2.2.n delivery (1791 Fields, 3438 plates) (P1)

Item	Count	% done	Notes
Plates available	3438	100
Plates processed	3438	100
DB Load	3438	100

• 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	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	0	603	100	P1	1
POSS-II	314	271	0	271	86		1
SERC	894	905	0	905	100		1

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