CASB Report August
2002
Highlights for Division Meeting
· Scanning and processing the last major shipment of Near-IR plates.
Community Affairs and Communications
· (OATo) The master for the GSC2M CDROM was sent to the copy company for production of 5000 labeled copies with jackets. These should be at STScI by the second week of September.
·
Project Management and Technical
Infrastructure
·
Consultant
William O’Mullane visited for 2 weeks and worked with
Greene on providing VO web services for GSC2 and DSS access. This included
providing standard FITS WCS keywords for DSS images.
·
Greene continued to support NVO metadata activities.
MISSION SUPPORT
HST Operations
· Reviewed 5 new Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period. All of these were fine lock failures, including one that is partially resolved into a pair on DSS images. Filed a Bad GS Alert for each of the GSs. Also filed a Bad GS Alert for an object found by M. Rinehart that is a misclassified blend on DSS images.
· Assisted in GS selection for future observations of a target planned for 125 HST orbits.
· Continuing Getimage port, but a few Windows pitfalls are hindering progress.
· Continued to update the keywords of the header files.
NGST Development Studies
·
No activity
DIGITIZED
SKY SURVEY
Plate Scanning
· Continued scanning the POSS-I O (blue) survey plates until the last major shipment of plates arrived from ROE. It contains 32 southern UKST IR plates plus 14 plates of northern IR (N) fields that were taken with the UK Schmidt Telescope to complete the northern survey. Unpacked and began scanning these plates.
GAMMA Microdensitometer Systems
· Brought GAMMA2 back into operational status after restoration of communications between the servo box and the stand-alone console, and a lengthy sequence of tension adjustments. Analysis of the digital scan data shows performance is within all specifications. Unfortunately, two scans failed at the end of the reporting period. Currently investigating the problem.
·
GAMMA1
continues to perform within specifications, but is beginning to show mechanical
signs indicating the need for preventive maintenance and/or mechanical adjustments.
Data Compression/CD Production
·
Compressing
of POSSI-O plate scans continued, but CD production has stopped due to problems
with the mastering the CDROMs.
·
Investigated
the failure of the Young Minds CDROM writer. Attempted to "purge" its
system on several occasions and also tried replacing the noisy internal hard
disk. Nothing worked. Currently running tests in writing CDROM's for the XDSS
on Plextor to ensure the proper settings and compatibility with existing
operating systems and software.
· Replied to two helpdesk requests for support.
GSC-II
Plate Processing and COMPASS Database
·
As of
·
As of 01-Sep-2002 , 5486 GSC2 plates were loaded into the COMPASS
database; 5119 of these plates are matched.
· Continued to load and match both the northern and southern IR survey data.
· Continued loading external reference catalogs for future recalibrations. Loaded the SKYMAP and the GSPC2 catalogs, and reloaded the TYCHO catalog. Performed some quick look analysis to verify the loading of these catalogs.
· Began to work on an algorithm to match the external catalogs to GSC2 data.
· Rebuilt a number of database production tasks as well as some of the maintenance utilities after the schema was altered for the new catalogs. Encountered a couple of problems in the matching task and have yet to spend any significant time troubleshooting due to time and resource constraints.
· Completed processing nearly all the IR plates that failed processing or produced unacceptable results. Began processing the newly scanned IR plates.
SOFTWARE
· Completed initial development of a program that will access the current GSC2 database and obtain information needed to create MCO files for calibration purposes. Testing and validation is currently in progress.
·
Created a backup of software development
directories on the CHART server to COMPASS and ANTONIO. Organization of software will be an ongoing
process.
· Beginning port of the object classifier application from VMS to Windows 2000.
CALIBRATIONS: Astrometry
·
Tested proper
motion routines on regions in list provided by OATo.
CALIBRATIONS: Classification
· A visit by Laidler for one week to OATo provided some fruitful advances in the procedures to determine classification accuracy and in the production of an article to describe GSCII classifications.
CALIBRATIONS:
Photometry (GSPC-II and DSS-I and -II)
· Completed CTIO observing run with partial success
· Preparing for next La Palma run
GSC-II Science
·
The paper "
Discovery of a peculiar DQ white dwarf " Carollo
et al. based on GSCII data was accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysics Letters. A preprint can be found at
http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0208479.
Appendix – CASB Statistical Summary
PLATE PROCESSING STATUS
|
Survey |
Μ |
Prefix |
Total |
SCANS Month/Total/% |
COMPRESS Month/Total/% |
PROCESS
Month/Total/% |
DBLOAD
Month/Total/%
|
DBMATCH
Month/Total/%
|
Notes
|
|
POSS-II J |
15 |
XJ |
897 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
S4 |
|
POSS-II F |
15 |
XP |
897 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
S4 |
|
POSS-II N |
15 |
XI |
897 |
0/883/98 |
0/873//97 |
0/873/97 |
4/793/88 |
144/774/86 |
S4 |
|
UKST north IR |
15 |
IN |
14 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
S7 |
|
AAO-SES |
15 |
XS |
606 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
0/527/87 |
0/527/87 |
S4 |
|
PPARC-ER |
15 |
ER |
288 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
0/213/74 |
0/213/74 |
|
|
AAO-SR |
15 |
GR |
118 |
Completed |
Completed |
0/116/98 |
0/116/98 |
0/116/98 |
S2 |
|
UKST-SR |
15 |
RS |
112 |
0/50/45 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
S5 |
|
UKST-I |
15 |
IS |
894 |
29/891/99 |
0/862/96 |
4/846/95 |
5/835/93 |
4/820/92 |
S6 |
|
SERC-J/EJ |
25 |
S |
894 |
Completed |
Completed |
0/365/41 |
0/365/41 |
0/365/41 |
S1 |
|
SERC-J/EJ rescans |
15 |
S |
447 |
0/443/99 |
0/99/22 |
0/344/77 |
0/344/77 |
0/344/77 |
S1 |
|
SERC-QV |
15 |
XV |
94 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
0/90/96 |
0/90/96 |
|
|
POSS-I E |
25 |
XE |
818 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
39/340/42 |
|
S3 |
|
POSS-I E |
15 |
XE |
129 |
Completed |
Completed |
Completed |
0/9/7 |
0/9/7 |
S3 |
|
POSS-I O |
15 |
XO |
936 |
13/561/60 |
0/143/15 |
192/267/26 |
0/3/0 |
0/0/0 |
|
|
POSS-QV |
25 |
N |
611 |
Completed |
Completed |
0/254 |
0/2/0 |
0/0/0 |
|
|
Special |
25 |
XX |
4 |
Completed |
Completed |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
|
|
Black Birch |
25 |
XB |
69 |
Completed |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
|
|
GPO Astrograph |
25 |
XG |
49 |
Completed |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
0/0/0 |
|
- 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).
- S7. IR plates taken with the UK
Schmidt to complete the POSSII-N Survey.
GSC-II
RETRIEVALS for last 9 months
Dec 2001: 169721 
Jan 2002: 444834 
Feb 2002: 290727 
Mar 2002: 126745
Apr 2002: 53387
May 2002: 62853
Jun 2002: 50696
Jul
2002: 58763
Aug
2002: 135984