ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES ================================ Position Statement ------------------ The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope, WHT, and 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope, INT) continues to serve the scientific community every night of the year, despite a dramatic reduction in funding. The ING telescopes continue to be in high demand though the European astronomical community has access to a powerful arsenal of very large telescopes. But clearly the changing environment does not leave the observatory unaffected. This brief paper summarizes ING's position and its view of how it expects to continue to deliver a high-quality service to the astronomical community from one of the best observing sites in the world. ING currently receives its funding from the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Spanish Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). PPARC has indicated its intention to significantly reduce funding from 2009 onwards. To safeguard the scientific future of the ING a new balance of financial contributions between the partners in ING is being discussed, while new interested parties are on the horizon. The funding agencies have expressed their commitment to work towards a continuing healthy future for the observatory. In future years ING's telescopes should be seen in a wider, European context. Coordination of national facilities will be a central theme for European astronomy in years to come. ING is playing an active role in this, and is seeking to build bridges to other telescope groups at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Finding common areas of interest and avoiding duplication will allow telescopes to work more cost effectively while still retaining the variety of instrument capability that the community demands. The future scientific impact of the telescopes depends critically on the available instrumentation. Current instrumentation on the WHT caters well for a wide range of scientific projects. University-built, visiting instruments are expected to remain of scientific importance and are a uniquely attractive feature of the WHT. Ongoing instrument development activities focus on the completion of the laser guide star (LGS) upgrade to the adaptive optics (AO) system. This particular development activity is technically demanding, but the potential scientific reward is great: high-resolution IR imaging and optical integral-field spectroscopy over nearly the whole sky. Building on ING's experience and infrastructure in the field of adaptive optics and laser guide stars, and in collaboration with a large number of European institutes, ING is seeking European funding for the WHT to become an AO/LGS-technology test bed facility for future extremely large telescopes. Looking towards the future, there are exciting new possibilities on the horizon. ING is negotiating the deployment of an extremely stable high-resolution spectrograph on the WHT. The prime objective of this instrument is in the hot-topic area of exo-planet searches, but the instrument will be available for other uses as well. This would satisfy a strong interest in our user community in high-resolution spectroscopy. Furthermore, to exploit the best observing conditions, expansion of service and queue-scheduled observing is anticipated, as far as future budget constraints will allow. A number of smaller-scale but scientifically rewarding instrument developments are also in-hand. These include upgrades of CCDs, development of high-speed spectroscopic CCD modes, and the construction of an auxiliary port imaging camera, ACAM, that will allow high-quality imaging over a much wider field of view than currently available at the Cassegrain focus of the WHT. As ACAM will be virtually always available it will be a very useful tool for fast follow-up of transient sources or events, an activity that currently delivers an important science return. Looking further ahead, ING plans to develop a new common-user instrument for the WHT that would fulfill the science requirements for future years. Also a new scientific role for the INT needs to be defined. We invite members of the community who are interested in working with us on the scientific direction and definition of a new instruments to contact us. The Isaac Newton Group of telescopes has shown in past years its resilience and ability to adapt to new challenges. In coming years we will continue to strive to give the best possible service to the community. 31 January 2007 Rene Rutten Director, ING =================================== Dr Rene G.M. Rutten, Director, Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes Apartado de Correos 321 E-38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma SPAIN Tel office: +34 922 425421 Tel switchboard: +34 922 425410 Fax central: +34 922 425401 Email: rgmr@ing.iac.es ===================================== ============================================================= To subscribe to [INGNEWS] send to majordomo@ing.iac.es the command "subscribe ingnews" from the email address you want to subscribe. Leave the subject field and the rest of the message body empty. To unsubscribe from [INGNEWS] send to majordomo@ing.iac.es the command "unsubscribe ingnews" from the email address you want to unsubscribe. Leave the subject field and the rest of the message body empty. You can subscribe a colleague to [INGNEWS] by sending an email to majordomo@ing.iac.es with the message "subscribe ingnews address" in the body of the message, where address should contain your collegue's email address. This only works from a previously subscribed address. 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