Collaboration between observatories ----------------------------------- In the European astronomical arena international collaborations are emerging between national facilities. These collaborations have been promoted and supported by the OPTICON european network, which combines astronomers from many european countries and is funded through the EU (see http://www.astro-opticon.org). An important driver for setting up collaborations between observatories is the wish to make the best instruments available to the wider community of astronomers for the advancements of our science, and to make the existing facilities work more efficient in the process. On a european scale it does not appear to make sense anymore to duplicate instrumentation while the cost for development and operation of telescopes with a large variety of instruments becomes prohibitive. Collaborations would provide a better service for all astronomers. One logical collaboration that is being considered is between the Calar-Alto 3.5-m telescope in southern Spain and the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope on the Canary Islands. Researchers from Germany would be able to request time at the WHT and visa-versa. Experience gained from the ING-CAHA collaboration will be helpful to define an operational model for a larger collaboration of European medium-sized telescopes which is presently being discussed. Both the CAHA-3.5 and the WHT are equiped with a range of state of the art and 'staple' instruments, and offer complementary capabilities. Specifically, the particular strengths of the CAHA-3.5 telescope is Omega 2000, a NIR wide field (15') imager available in the 3.5m prime focus, and LAICA, a 1 square degree imager for the optical wavelength region. Additional, state of the art instruments are OmegaCass, a NIR detector which allows for medium-resolution spectroscopy and polarimetry, the AO system ALFA which is to be upgraded with a NIR wavefront sensor within the next 2 years, PMAS, a fibre-fed integral field spectrograph, and MOSCA, a multi-purpose focal reducer MOS capability. The 4.2-m WHT, on the other hand features, besides standard spectroscopic and optical/IR imaging tools, a wide-field multi-object fibre spectrograph (WYFFOS), and a high-order adaptive optics system (NAOMI) for IR imaging, coronography, and (from 2003) optical integral field spectroscopic capability. It is anticipated that the Adaptive Optics system will be enhanced with a Rayleigh laser guide star in order to enhance sky coverage. Also from 2003 onwards a state-of-the-art IR imaging and spectrograph system (LIRIS) will come into operation. For full information on the instruments offered see http://www.caha.es/CAHA/Instruments/index.html and http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/instruments/index.html The method of sharing time would be on a basis of swapping equal number of nights between the CAHA-3.5 and the WHT. Observations at the CAHA-3.5 are largely carried out in service mode and objectives of the observations are guaranteed through automatic compensation for inadequate weather conditions. The normal national time allocation committees would decide on the scientific ranking of all proposals. Before embarking on a collaboration we wish to canvas interest in our user communities in The Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. For this we are seeking your input. we hope you can find a few minutes to answer the following questions and return your response: 1. Do you consider this time-share scheme between the CAHA-3.5 and the WHT telescopes a generally positive development ? YES / NO / NEUTRAL 2. If working in Germany, would you consider applying for time at the WHT, or if in the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, would you apply for time at the CAHA-3.5 ? YES / NO / MAYBE 3. Which instrument(s) would be of particular interest to you ? 4. Which instrument capability would you like to see developed on the CAHA-3.5 or the WHT-4.2 telescope ? 5. Any other notes or comments related to this collaboration ? 6. User profile: Are you an active user of ground-based telescopes ? YES / NO Have you used the CAHA-3.5 in the past 3 years ? YES / NO Have you used the WHT in the past 3 years ? YES / NO In which country are you working ? GER / UK / NL / OTHER Respones to this questionnaire are welcome until the end of February 2002 and can be send by email or otherwise to Roland Gredel or Rene Rutten at the coordinates given below. Thank you for your attention. Roland Gredel Rene Rutten Director CAHA Director ING gredel@caha.es rgmr@ing.iac.es ============================================================= * To unsubscribe from [INGNEWS] send to majordomo@ing.iac.es the command "unsubscribe ingnews" in the body of the message. Please don't type in the quotation marks and leave the subject field and the rest of the body empty. * You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending an email to majordomo@ing.iac.es with the message "subscribe ingnews " in the body of the message, where should contain your email address, e.g. einstein@xyz.ac.uk. You can subscribe a colleague in the same way if you have subscribed your address previously. * For further information on ING, point your browser to: http://www.ing.iac.es/ =============================================================