Canada France Hawaii Telescope
Report of the 77th meeting
of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
Scientific Advisory Council
10, 11 May 2010 - Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
NOTE: The report presented below is the public version of the SAC report as amended by the CFHT Board of Directors.
After deliberation, the CFHT Board of Directors has endorsed SAC’s recommendations No. 3 – SPIRou draft science case document, and No. 4 – 'Imaka phase A proposal.
The remaining recommendations will be further discussed at the Board's next regular meeting, December 2010.
| Recommendation 1: | CFHTLS T0007 release |
| Recommendation 2: | Large Programs Mid-term review |
| Recommendation 3: | SPIRou Draft science case document |
| Recommendation 4: | 'Imaka phase A proposal |
| Recommendation 5: | Declination pointing investigation |
The 77th CFHT SAC meeting was held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada May 10-11/2010, hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy. SAC members John Blakeslee, Mark Chun, Thierry Contini, Pierre-Alain Duc, Brett Gladman (chair), Denis Mourard (vice-chair), David Sanders, Gregg Wade and Jon Willis attended the meeting. SAC member Coralie Neiner did not attend (although participated in the CFHT-TAC meeting on the second day via telecon). Yoichi Oyama, from the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, attended the meeting as an invitee. The CFHT director Christian Veillet, Derrick Salmon, and Daniel Devost participated in presentations and discussions.
0. Board feedback to SAC
The 1996 communications policy was discussed, and it was agreed that future SAC meetings would begin with a brief oral review by the Executive Director of the previous SAC report, providing commentary if needed from the perspective of Board's deliberations.
1. CFHTLS
CFHTLS is one of CFHT's major scientific successes. The 2010 users' meeting will provide another opportunity to present its scientific achievements and potential for future exploitation by the worldwide community. This will be vastly improved by the announcement of the next CFHTLS releases.
Recommendation 1: CFHTLS T0007 release SAC recommends all efforts be made to have the CFHTLS T0007 release occur before the November 2010 CFHT Users meeting. |
2. LP progress reports
SAC felt the progress reports from the four currently operating large programs indicate all have been proceeding satisfactorily in 2010A. A request from MaPP to move time from 2012B to 2010B was accommodated by the Mimes collaboration volunteering to move time out of 2010B. The original LP call stipulates a mid-term review which SAC judges should be submitted by all four of the original LPs. As per the original implementation procedure, these should include: (1) progress report (data acquired, publications, etc), (2) an update on the observing plan for the remainder of the LP, (3) any significant change in co-I status and other LP participants that could alter the agency balance. In case of an unsatisfactory review, the allocated time may be modified. Programs may request up to 5% increases in their allocation for highly successful programs if this increase will provide a meaningful targeted scientific return and/or enhance the legacy value of the LP.
Recommendation 2: Large Programs; Mid-term review The Pandas, NGVS, MAPP, and Mimes LPs provide SAC (with an informational copy to the national agency TACs) with a mid-term review by October 15 2010. |
5. `Imaka
SAC was impressed with the quality of the feasibility study report, which in many aspects is much more advanced than a strict feasibility study. It is important that a Phase A study would need to provide a detailed system analysis which integrates, in a global model, all the technical aspects worked out in this feasibility study. This system analysis should address the interface with the CFHT telescope. The document provides a broad variety of science cases. As this is normal for the kind of general facility provided by the 'IMAKA instrument, the proposal would be greatly improved if the image-quality dependent science cases are supported by a quantitative discussion of how the expected scientific return depends upon incremental image quality improvements for optimal, nominal or degraded conditions. These highlighted science cases should be clearly described in terms of number of nights, survey strategy and other observing parameters. SAC considers some of these science cases as clearly compelling and urges the team to reinforce the science document with a more focussed presentation. CFHT and SAC requested external reviews of the technical aspects of the feasibility study. SAC feels these reports provide substantial independent confidence that the instrument is technically feasible. SAC considers it important that the team present a phase A plan that shows how the Phase A study would address detailed issues such as: - The assumptions on the spatial and temporal properties of the AO DM and of the wave front sensors have to be consolidated by the continuation of the turbulence measurements. Indeed, the bandwidth errors of the correcting devices have to be considered and consistent with the turbulence characteristics. - The team has ignored the contribution of the dome venting for the feasibility study, which is pessimistic. For the phase A they should be careful to outline how the now-approved dome venting (and assumptions on its effectiveness) impacts the performance and system requirements. - The team should develop a complete error budget for the image quality. This should include the impact of dome venting. - The simulations of the GLAO and OTCCD performances should clarify how the percentage of time for the optimal image quality is affected by the field characteristics and by the external observing conditions: local and free atmosphere seeing (already done), position and number of guide stars (GLAO and OTCCD). - Finally it appears that it would be necessary to develop a model of the 'IMAKA PSF over the large FOV to reach the full performances on astrometry and photometry. This should correctly take into account all the subsystems of the instrument. An aggressive schedule is presented. It should be consolidated by the clear identification of the resources needed for the phase A step and during the phase A for the following phases of the project.
Recommendation 4: 'Imaka phase A proposal SAC encourages the 'IMAKA team to develop a full phase A proposal for this fall. Documents should be received before October 1/2010. |
6. Gyes
SAC received information on the progress of an externally-funded study for the GYES instrument, submitted via the CFHT director. SAC did not request a document for May 2010; lacking access to this information before the SAC meeting, SAC spent only a small amount of time considering this progress report. SAC repeats its willingness (stated in the November 2009 SAC meeting) to review a full phase A proposal if submitted by October 1/2010. The phase A study should build upon the feasibility study by providing a detailed science case where instrument performance is justified by science requirements, and will receive an external review. In addition to the technical and scientific case for the instrument concept, the phase A proposal should also identify specific individuals and labs responsible for specific areas of the system and the project management for the instrument, along with realistic time tables. The issue of the manpower resources that would be required to exploit the scientific data from Gyes (once on the sky) at the same time that the community is dealing with the Gaia data must be discussed. The study should also demonstrate cross-community support for the instrument concept and science case; if not, SAC would likely request a clear statement from the French agency as to how they would view Gyes time allocations as a single-agency instrument (possibly in direct competition with Spirou).
7. Technical Activities report
SAC reviewed the technical activities report delivered by Derrick Salmon. The last 6 months have been relatively smooth from this point of view. The operational priorities need not change. SAC is pleased that dome venting is proceeding, and still hopes that the dome work could begin in summer 2012 in order to reach operational status by 2013A. The Declination pointing issue is still on the table, and SAC was concerned to hear that the amplitude of the variation was increasing linearly with time. The work has revealed a systematic pattern in the declination error which appears predictable and could thus be incorporated into the pointing model (which should reduce some overheads currently occurring in Espadons operations, even though this will have no effect on the underlying problem).
8. 2010 CFHT User's meeting
The 2010 CFHT User's Meeting will occur in Taiwan November 16-18 2010. The Scientific Organizing Committee has been formed and SAC began planning the UM highlights.