The future direction of the ING: A community questionnaire
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This questionnaire aims to gauge the scientific interest
from the community in the future instrumentation and
exploitation of the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT)
and the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) on the Island
of La Palma.
Input to this brief questionnaire from astronomers is highly
appreciated in particular those working in the United
Kingdom, The Netherlands or Spain.
Information received will form a key element of the
international review of the future direction of the observatory
that is scheduled to take place in 2005.
Your response will be treated strictly in confidence.
The questionnaire may be completed through the on-line form
at http://www.ing.iac.es/About-ING/questionnaire_form.html
or by editing the attached questions and sending it by email
to Rene Rutten: rgmr@ing.iac.es.
Deadline is 31 May 2005.
Questions may be addressed to Rene Rutten, Director of the
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes: rgmr@ing.iac.es
Rene Rutten
Director, ING
1 February 2005
Background:
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The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on the island of La Palma has
been in operation now for over 20 years. Over these decades the ING
telescopes have been amongst the most productive telescopes in the
world, and the WHT remains highly oversubscribed, underlining the
continued strong demand. Moreover, La Palma has been recognized as
being one of the very best observing sites in the world, and most
certainly the only world-class site in Europe.
With the changing landscape in astronomy, in particular the advent
of the 8-m class telescopes, the scientific requirements for the
ING telescopes are also changing. The exploitation of the ING telescopes
is gradually shifting from being a multi-purpose facility with a
wide range of instruments to a more focused and specialized set
of telescopes. Similar developments are seen at other medium-size
telescopes around the world, and are driven by scientific needs and
tighter financial constraints. Discussions are under way with other
European telescope operators to explore the possibilities of
coordinating the use of medium-class telescopes across the usual
national boundaries with the aim of achieving higher efficiency
while retaining a wide range of instrument capabilities for the
participating countries. The ING telescopes will likely play a
central role in this. Moreover, the international agreements
that form the foundation of the observatory will come to an
end in 2009. The contributing partners, PPARC, NWO and the IAC,
will be defining plans for the future of the ING. Responses to this
questionnaire will assist in drawing up plans that will best serve
the community.
The default situation in the future for the WHT is essentially the
continuation of the existing suite of instruments, which now comprises
optical and IR imaging and spectroscopic capability, multi-object
spectroscopy, and adaptive optics (AO) at optical and IR wavelengths.
Ongoing developments focus on extending the use of the adaptive optics
suite through the use of a Rayleigh laser beacon which will dramatically
increase the sky coverage and hence the scientific potential of the
existing AO system. The potential of AO-assisted optical intergral
field spectroscopy with nearly full sky coverage will be unique
for some years to come.
The WHT has also acted as a very successful and much-used platform
for private instruments. This is foreseen to continue, as it fulfils
a clear need in the community and attracts novel, fast-track
scientific projects. Recent examples of visiting instruments include
the UltraCAM high-speed triple-band camera, the SAURON integral field
spectrograph, the PN.S planetary nebula spectrograph, and the S-CAM
super conducting tunnel junction detector, a good example of the
WHT as a test-bed for new technologies.
At the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope only the continued operation of
the wide-field camera is currently foreseen.
Future use of the ING telescopes will naturally complement research
prospects at larger telescopes, and that of specialized survey
telescopes, space missions and ground-based facilities operating at
other spectral windows. In this respect we anticipate an increasing
interest in observations of large samples of objects, or exploration
of the time domain, and hence a gradual increase of the length of
observing runs.
The questions that follow aim to identify the future science
requirements for the ING telescopes.
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1. YOUR PROFILE:
1.1 Name: ..............
1.2 Affiliation: .......
1.3 E-mail: ............
1.4 Position (select one): Permanent / Post Doc / Ph.D. Student / Other
1.5 How would you classify your research interests
(tick one or more options):
PLANETARY RESEARCH AND SOLAR-SYSTEM OBJECTS ........ YES / NO
STAR FORMATION AND EVOLUTION ....................... YES / NO
STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION OF GALAXIES ................ YES / NO
DISTANT UNIVERSE AND COSMOLOGY ..................... YES / NO
THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS ........................... YES / NO
INSTRUMENTATION .................................... YES / NO
1.6 Other ground-based optical/IR telescopes used: .......
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2. THE 4.2-m WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE:
The WHT caters for a relatively wide range of observing
options: optical/IR (multi-object) spectroscopy;
optical/IR imaging; high spatial resolution spectroscopic
and imaging observations; platform for visiting instruments.
2.1 Have you obtained data from the WHT in the
last three years ? .................................... YES / NO
2.2 Which of the following areas of instrument capability on the
WHT do you consider important to retain for your future research,
taking into account instruments available on other telescopes,
including the 8-m class facilities ?
Note that Adaptive Optics (AO) capability will soon be extended
with a laser guide star, providing nearly 100% sky coverage.
Please do not answer 'yes' to more than 4 options:
AO ASSISTED INTEGRAL-FIELD OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY ... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
AO ASSISTED NEAR-IR IMAGING ....................... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY .............................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
OPTICAL MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY ................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
OPTICAL IMAGING ................................... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
NEAR-IR SPECTROSCOPY .............................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
NEAR-IR MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY ................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
NEAR-IR IMAGING ................................... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
2.3 Is there an area in observing capability on the WHT that
requires further development of new or existing instrumentation ?
(e.g. high-resolution spectroscopy / high-time resolution
imaging or spectroscopy / AO assisted optical imaging or IR
spectroscopy / wide-field multi-object spectroscopy)
2.4 Over the years the WHT has been used by a wide selection of university
groups as a platform for visiting instruments and as a testbed for
carying out experiments. Should this activity also be supported in
the future ? ................................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
2.5 Should the WHT in the future offer MORE / LESS /
THE SAME level of flexibility in instruments
offered and their scheduling ? ............... MORE / LESS / SAME
2.6 Do you personally, or your research group
anticipate using the WHT in future years ? ..... YES / NO / MAYBE
2.7 If you answered YES or MAYBE to the above, which broad
area of research do you expect to use the WHT for ?
2.8 Any general comments or further clarification on the future
use of the WHT ?
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3. THE 2.5-m ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE:
The INT currently only supports wide field optical imaging
and has to be operated at the lowest possible cost.
3.1 Have you obtained data from the INT in the
last three years ? ...................................... YES / NO
3.2 Do you consider it important to retain the
Wide Field Camera for your future research ? .. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
3.3 Is there any new instrumentation that you would
like to see developed for the INT ? ........... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
If YES, indicate which type: .....
3.4 Do you personally, or your research group
anticipate using the INT in future years ? .... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
3.5 If you answered YES to the above, which broad
area of research do you foresee to carry out ?
3.6 Any general comments or further clarification on the future
use of the INT ?
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4. SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY:
Queue scheduled observing, service mode observing, and archival
research become increasingly more popular. But these activities
are also costly for the observatory to support and would impact
on other activities.
4.1 Would you prefer having your observations carried out
in queue-scheduled or service more of observation
by observatory personnel ? .................... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
4.2 Should observing time be set aside to compensate
top-ranked scheduled observations for loss of time
due to bad weather ? .......................... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
4.3 The Cambridge Data Archive holds all data
obtained with the ING telescope. Is this
archive important for your research ? ......... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
4.4 Have you published papers based on ING data
retrieved from the archive ? ............................ YES / NO
4.5 What do you see as important improvements in service that
the observatory should deliver to its community of users ?
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5. COLLABORATION WITH OTHER OBSERVATORIES:
Most likely the pressure on the observatory to reduce cost
even further will remain, and therefore ways to streamline
operations and development of the facilities is very important.
Collaboration with other observatories could lead to an overall
better and more cost effective service to the community.
The inevitable consequence, however, would be a reduced direct
influence of each community over their national facility.
Benefits would be guaranteed access to more telescopes and
hence to a broader range of instruments. Through focusing on
specific tasks each telescope could be run more efficiently.
5.1 Would you support a wider sharing of the WHT and the
INT in return for access to other telescopes and
instruments ? ............................. YES / NO / NEUTRAL
5.2 Considering the above model, would you support
having a single international time allocation
committee instead of a national TAC ? ..... YES / NO / NEUTRAL
5.3 Any other general comments on collaboration with
other telescopes ?
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6. ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS, IF YOU WISH:
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send to rgmr@ing.iac.es by 31 May 2005
THANK-YOU !
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