From naw@ing.iac.es Sun Apr 30 19:21:17 2000 Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 18:20:22 +0100 (WEST) From: Nicholas A Walton To: Instrumentation Working Group -- Gavin B. Dalton , kuijken@astro.rug.nl, Nicholas A Walton , Richard McMahon at IoA , sam@ll.iac.es, sfg1@ukc.ac.uk, Vik Dhillon at Sheffield Cc: vdhulst@astro.rug.nl, r.m.sharples@durham.ac.uk, c.dainty@ic.ac.uk, Peter Doel , miles@ing.iac.es, rgmr@ing.iac.es Subject: DRAFT IWG Agenda - 5 May 2000 - Canterbury (fwd) Dear All, just a reminder about the upcoming IWG meeting, 5 May 2000 in Canterbury. Unfortunately Konrad can't make this meeting - however, I'm asking if perhaps Thijs van der Hulst could come over in his place. This would be especially interesting, as he is, amongst other things, PI of the OASIS funding bid to NWO. Otherwise, it seems that you can all attend, Chris Dainty probably only for the afternoon. Hence, I'd aim to defer AO/LGS discussions for the afternoon session. Below I attach the revised DRAFT agenda for the 3rd meeting of the ING's IWG. If you have any suggestions for additions/amendments, please let me know. Also, at the end, I append the minutes of the Nov 1 1999 IoA IWG meeting. Logistics: It will be held in the Meeting (am) and Conference (pm) rooms in the School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent at Canterbury. Our host will be Simon Green - Tel: 01227 764000 for the university switchboard. I or Simon will be sending a further email nearer the date with some futher info - in particular Simon will be able to organise parking permits for those of you who come with a car. For general contact info for the UKC see http://www.ukc.ac.uk/ and the location map at http://www.ukc.ac.uk/ukc/location.html (note - look for the PHYSICS LABORATORY on the Campus Map). If you need help booking hotels in Canterbury please contact Rachael Miles (miles@ing.iac.es) or perhaps Simon who probably has a list of local hotels - who should be able to help out. I'll have claim forms available for your travel expenses, hence please retain your travel and hotel receipts. Content: In terms of the meeting, the most important task for this IWG is to study the science possibilities opened up by the development of the WYFFOS spectrograph - in particular which areas should be emphasised vis a vis AO (from NAOMI+INGRID/OASIS/TEIFU/IR-TEIFU/Coronograph) or Wide Field AF2 (optical/ Integral Fields, IR). Recommendations for prioritising the WYFFOS development path will go to the May 29, 2000 ING Board meeting. Hope to see you all in Canterbury on the 5th May 2000. All the best, Nic Walton ----------------- agenda --------------------------- IWG - Friday May 5 2000: (10.00-17.00) -------------------------------------- Location: Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Kent at Canterbury, UK Members: Richard McMahon Cosmology - Chair rgm@ast.cam.ac.uk Simon Green Solar sfg1@ukc.ac.uk Vik Dhillon Stellar vik.dhillon@sheffield.ac.uk Santiago Arribas Galaxies - E sam@ll.iac.es Gavin Dalton Galaxies gbd@astro.ox.ac.uk Koen Kuijken Galaxies - NL k.h.kuijken@astro.rug.nl (unable to attend) Nic Walton ING - Secretary naw@ing.iac.es In Attendance: Chris Dainty IC - LGS AO c.dainty@ic.ac.uk Peter Doel UCL - AO coronography apd@star.ucl.ac.uk Ray Sharples Durham - IR-TEIFU/MOSAIC r.m.sharples@durham.ac.uk Thijs vd Hulst Groningen - OASIS vdhulst@astro.rug.nl Proposed Agenda: 1. Introduction: welcome 2. Matters arising from meeting of November 1 1999: accept the minutes 3. The WHT and WYFFOS development path. 3.1 Present instrumentation - AF2 (small fibres end 2000) + WYFFOS 3.2 Near term developments - NAOMI + TEIFU + WYFFOS NAOMI + INGRID 3.3 Mid term possibilities - NAOMI (+/- Coronograph) + OASIS NAOMI (+/- Coronograph) + IR-TEIFU + WYFFOS + INGRID NAOMI (+/- Coronograph) + IR-TEIFU + WYFFOS + 2kx2k MCT AF2 + deplyable IFUs and small fibres + WYFFOS + 4kx4k CCD AF2 + IR fibres + WYFFOS + INGRID or 2kx2k MCT Hopefully Peter and Ray can perhaps give a brief overview of what the performance and use of the Coronograph and IR-TEIFU (repectively) will be - and how they see these instruments fitting in with the development work in this area. 3.4 Impact of Laser Guide star on NAOMI and impact on priority of above instrumentation options Hopefully Chris would be able to give an update on the LGS plans - as envisaged in the recently submitted JIF bid. 4. Update on new instrument proposals: 4.1 Coronograph for NAOMI - PPARC have approved funding 4.2 OASIS for NAOMI - bid to NL NWO for funds Thijs(?) may have some news on the progress of the OASIS NWO bid 4.3 Mosaic - PPARC have approved design funds Ray will give a brief report on the opportunity offered by MOSAIC, and plans for progress. 4.4 F-Ps for NAOMI - deferred 5. Brief update on on-going ING developments/enhancements, in particular: 5.1 INGRID - successful comm. 16-23 Mar 2000 5.2 NAOMI - due for July 2000 comm. 5.3 UltraDAS (now includes the IR detectors as well) 5.4 red CCDs 5.5 LIRIS 6. Update on LDSS/TAURUS adoption proposals 6.1 LDSS-2: Durham/IoA 6.2 TAURUS: IoA 7. A Wide Field Imager for the WHT/INT This has been discussed in the context of the UKIRT/INT wide field IR debate. At that time GBFC/AC funded the UKIRT WF camera (at a cost of UKP 5.2M(!)) and decided that they did not wish to fund a new large optical CCD camera at either UKIRT or the ING. Some interest has been expressed (mainly from the NL side) in a WF camera (especially for the WHT) - hence it would be interesting to hear your views on the importance of this - especially in the context of the existing ING instrumentation plan and developments at other observatories. 8. Instrumentation rationalisation. In order to ensure that the operations cost of the ING is as economic as possible the JKT and INT instrumentation suite has been rationalised. To continue this process at the INT, the ING wishes to finally decommission FOS-1. Would the IWG support this? In the same manner the instrumentation offered at the WHT has been reduced - most recently by transferring TAURUS and LDSS to private ownership. However, with the arrival of INGRID, NAOMI, and possible further AO instrumentation, the WHT's package will need to be further reviewed. The IWG's thought's on what present WHT instrumentation might next be retired or transferred to private ownership is sought. 9. NL instrumenation developments of interest to the IWG [vdHULST?] 10. E instrumentation developments of interest to the IWG [SAM] 11. Any Other Business ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A: Minutes of Last Meeting: Cambridge, 1 November 1999 ING Instrumentation Working Group ================================= Minutes of the meeting held Mon 1 November 1999 ----------------------------------------------- Location: IoA Old Observatory Building, Meeting Room, Univ of Cambridge Time: 10.15 - 17.30 Present: Dr R G McMahon (Chair) (RGM) Dr G B Dalton (GBD) Dr V S Dhillon (VSD) Dr K Kuijken (KK) Dr N A Walton (Secretary) (NAW) In Attendance: Dr A J Longmore (UKATC) (AJL) Apologies: Dr S Arribas (SAM) Dr S F Green (SFG) Papers: these were distributed before the meeting in two emails (18 Oct 1999) to all committee members from NAW a. IWG/1999B/1: mosaic b. IWG/1999B/2: oasis c. IWG/1999B/3: hrsi- F-Ps for naomi d. IWG/1999B/4: a coronographic capability e. IWG/1999B/5: manchester taurus bid f. IWG/1999B/6: IoA taurus bid g. IWG/1999B/7: french taurus bid h. IWG/1999B/8: Durham/IoA LDSS bid i. IWG/1999B/9: Instrumentation Announcement of Opportunity j. IWG/1999B/10: LDSS/TAURUS Announcement of Opportunity these were distributed at the meeting k. Comments from Simon Green on the Instrument and LDSS/TAURUS proposals l. Comments from Santiago Arribas on the Instrument proposals m. Proposal for Guaranteed time to instrument builders submitted by Rene Rutten to the ING Board 10/99 n. Overheads describing the current ING instrumentation progress and summarizing the Instrument proposals - by NAW Abbreviations and Glossary: 2dF The 2deg prime focus fibre fed multi-object spectrograph capability on the AAT AAT 3.9-m Anglo Australian Telescope AO Adaptive Optics CFHT 3.6-m Canada France Hawaii Telescope ELECTRA The Durham multi segment mirror AO system - this will form the heart of NAOMI ESO European Southern Observatory LGS Laser Guide Star IFU Integral Field Unit INGB Isaac Newton Group Board INGRID a near IR 1kx1k camera for the WHT INT 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope LIRIS a near IR spectrograph being built by the IAC for the 4.2-m WHT NAOMI The optical/IR AO system for the WHT TAURUS The Fabry-Perot imaging spectrograph, mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the WHT TEIFU Thousand Element Integral Field Unit - an IFU to feed WYFFOS TTF TAURUS tunable filter (for low spectral resolution, wide field imaging) UES The WHT's Utrecht Echelle Spectrograph UKIRT 3.8-m UK Infra Red Telescope UltraDAS The ING's new Data Acquisition System VLT ESO's 4x8-m Very Large Telescope WHT 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope WYFFOS The WHT's Nasmyth mounted, fibre fed, spectrograph INTRODUCTION 1. Introduction: welcome 1.1 RGM welcomed the members to the meeting and noted that AJL was in attendance to provide technical input, especially to the discussions on AO instrumentation. 1.2 RGM noted the message and input received from Prof Chris Dainty (CD) (Imperial College). CD informed the IWG of developments in the LGS characterisation programme currently underway on La Palma (as described at http://op.ph.ic.ac.uk/jkt_lgs. CD noted that a bid to PPARC to support the deployment of a mesopheric sodium LGS system would be presented by Q3 2000 for a funding start of Q2 2001. CD indicated that he would be willing to discuss LGS related issues, perhaps attending the next meeting. MATTERS ARISING 2. Matters arising from meeting of April 6 1999 2.1 RGM highlighted the action points from the minutes of Apr 6 1999: 2.1.1 [IWG4-99/1.11] NAW was thanked for providing the papers in good time before this meeting [ACTION: CLOSED] 2.1.2 [IWG4-99/1.26] UK access to Durham's TEIFU still unclear [ACTION: RGMR] 2.1.3 [IWG4-99/1.27] Possibility of AO feed to UES discussed in 3.1 [ACTION: ONGOING] 2.1.4 [IWG4-99/3.7] AF2/WYFFOS J+H upgrade plan being developed - discussed in 5.4 [ACTION: ONGOING] 2.1.5 [IWG4-99/7] ING Sheffield Conference (Apr 1999) discussed in 6. NAW AGREED that the submitted papers would be placed on the ING WWW site as soon as possible. [ACTION: ONGOING] 2.2 NAW responded to VSD's note to the IWG4-99 minutes: The AAT 2dF fibres are 1.8 arcsec c.f. 2.7 arcsec for AF2 presently. Hence this means that the AF2 small fibres of 1.7 arcsec will be equivalent to those at the AAT. It was considered unlikely that there would be any need for the large fibres of AF2 once the small fibres were available. 2.3 Before discussing item 3 it was agreed to bring forward agenda item 5.2, and discuss NAOMI. AJL gave a brief update and overview of NAOMI developments: 2.3.1 final work packages were nearing completion at the ATC in preparation for shipping to Durham for integration by mid Dec 1999. - Wavefront sensor now being assembled (1 Nov) - CCDs (EEV39 80x80), two used have been acquired - readout noise is now to 0.5 e' of the requirements - Wave-front sensor frame rates specified at 1Mpix (to date rates of 0.7 Mpix at 7e' read noise and 200 kpix at 3.5e' read noise have been achieved) 2.3.2 AJL noted that the schedule was challenging but realistic. 2.3.3 Integration of NAOMI will be completed over a three month period with for 3 months before a planned April 2000 commission slot. 2.3.4 The availability of INGRID filters was queried. - Z, J, H, K and K_s currently available with extensive set to be available by July 2000. - www.ing.iac.es/IR/INGRID/Instrument_Overview.html lists the filters on order 2.3.5 The IWG asked that a overview sheet be provided listing the capabilities and performance specifications of NAOMI. [ACTION: NAW] Ensure that NAOMI info sheet is produced and made available on the ING WWW server. NEW INSTRUMENTATION PROPOSALS 3. The instrument proposals received in response to the July 1999 ING Announcement of Opportunity were reviewed. NAW presented a brief summary of the ING instrumentation strategy and a summary of the instrumentation proposals received. 3.0.1 It was noted that the received proposals all sought to exploit either the NAOMI high order AO system or a low order AO system based on a Rayleigh Laser beacon. 3.0.2 The use of a tip-tilt system at the WHT was queried. AJL said that this gave better results in the near IR (UKIRT have a successful system), but results from ELECTRA have shown that such a system would give less corrections in the optical. 3.0.3 Concern was raised as to the plans for AO instrumentation at Gemini. Chris Dainty had noted that there was an ambitious plan for a multi-conjugate (three to four) LGS system planned for Gemini South. NAW noted that Gemini would be aiming to exploit the near and mid-IR windows for their AO instrumentation. 3.1 MOSAIC was proposed by the Durham Instrumentation group (PI: Ray Sharples). 3.1.1 RGM noted that the science case needed further development. He was concerned that this instrument may be photon limited for some applications if deployed on a 4-m class telescope. 3.1.2 Specific through-puts were needed, and a comparison should be made to GMOS on Gemini. The proposal does however indicate that the performance from WHT+MOSAIC when operating with 0.3 arcsec slits should be comparable to that offered by Gemini+GMOS when Gemini is operating in median conditions. 3.1.3 KK noted that the Dutch community would have access to NIRMOS and VIMOS on the VLT. Hence comparison with these instruments would be needed. 3.1.4 GD mentioned that OHS on Suburu will have a 20 objects MOS working in the Z-H region, and will be commissioned in June 2000. However, it was noted that this will not work in the optical and the UK and NL communities will have little or no access to this instrument. 3.1.5 The risk associated with the deployment of an instrument reliant on a Rayleigh laser beacon was highlighted. AJL noted that such systems have been in use by the military for some years. NAW mentioned that the development of the Rayleigh beacon was funded in the Durham PPARC rolling grant. 3.1.6 AJL provided a brief description of restricted conjugate laser guide star system. It enables AO corrections over a wide field if the main turbulent layer is at a low altitude. The characterisation of the La Palma sky shows that this is the case at the 25% level. 3.1.7 The IWG considered this instrument to possibly be a major development for the ING and the WHT. They noted that it should be deployed as soon as possible, in order to be competitive. 3.1.8 The IWG recommended that the project be fully funding for it's first year to enable the design to be progressed and a fuller scientific backing from the UK and NL user communities to be sought. 3.2 A F-P system for NAOMI was proposed by the UKATC (PI: Andy Vick) 3.2.1 The IWG considered this a good proposal 3.2.2 There was concern expressed that this high resolution spectroscopy capability would have limited use outside of the stellar community. AJL (speaking as a co-PI) indicated that he'd had further expressions of interest in the use of this instrument. 3.2.3 AJL stated that the design could perhaps be adapted to allow single F-P operation at low resolutions, to enable it to address extra-galactic astronomical issues. 3.2.4 The IWG noted that this instrument would only provide capability in the Z-H spectral region, with exact wave-bands being to some extent determined by access to blocking filters in the IR (INGRID) camera (see 2.3.4) 3.2.5 The IWG AGREED that the F-P for NAOMI should be recommended for support over a project duration. Evidence should be sought for the scientific use of this instrument out side of the stellar community. 3.3 The Coronograph for NAOMI was submitted by OSL/UCL (PI: Peter Doel) 3.3.1 The IWG considered this to add an important new capability to NAOMI. It offered the prospect of exciting scientific results on a short time-scale. 3.3.2 The IWG did express some technical queries as to how the Coronograph would function in the optical regime (in particular how would the visible light get to the wavefront sensor?). It was hoped that this could be clarified. [ACTION: NAW to clarify with Peter Doel] 3.3.3 The IWG thought the scientific community might be limited for this instrument. However, it only required the level of science input already contained in the proposal to justify expenditure on it. 3.3.4 NAW noted that the Coronograph could fully exploit NAOMI without a LGS as most targets would have a bright central source. 3.3.5 The IWG AGREED that the Coronograph unit should be recommended for full support and hoped it could be implemented in the year time-scale indicated in the proposal. 3.4 OASIS for NAOMI 3.4.1 The IWG was concerned about the scientific possibilities offered by OASIS working in the optical regime in the absence of a LGS system. 3.4.2 Discussion centred on whether OASIS - which is currently a Cassegrain instrument in use at the CFHT - could be easily adapted to fit at the NAOMI optical port. AJL noted that there were constraints on the NAOMI optical feed (it was added as a late feature to the NAOMI design). 3.4.3 It was AGREED that the IWG would recommend that the Director, ING contact the OASIS PI (Dr Roland Bacon) to pursue further development of the technical case. In particular a visit from an OASIS engineer should be organised investigate the feasibility of using OASIS at the optical port of NAOMI. 3.4.4 It was AGREED that the desirability of supporting the OASIS development at the WHT should be reconsidered in approximately one year, before the 2001 funding round, and in the light of possible future developments as to the deployment of a full LGS system at the WHT. 3.5 Conclusions for Instrumentation Developments. 3.5.1 The IWG AGREED that the following recommendations should be made to the Director, ING: 3.5.1.a The supported instrumentation package should be viewed in the context of a well balanced package to exploit high order adaptively corrected images provided by NAOMI, and lower order images (over a wide field) provided by a Rayleigh laser beacon. 3.5.1.b The Coronograph for NAOMI (OSL/UCL, PI: Doel) should be supported. This one year project would leverage the science output of NAOMI. 3.5.1.c Support the development of MOSAIC (Durham, PI: Sharples) for a full year. This would enable the design to be progressed, and allow a fuller development of the scientific community for this instrument. 3.5.1.d Support the development of the F-P system for NAOMI over a period of two years. 3.5.1.e Review the case for support of OASIS (Lyon, PI: Bacon) after a period of one year, and after assessing further it's technical feasibility. 3.5.2 The IWG noted the community interest in developing new instrumentation capabilities at the WHT in the AO area - both high and low order systems 3.5.2 The IWG AGREED that the development of OPTICAL and J band spectroscopy was vital in order to fully exploit the superb image quality made available by AO feeds (from NAOMI and low and high order LGS systems). 3.5.3 The IWG stressed the urgency of the enhancements to the WYFFOS spectrograph, and also the completion of the 1000 elements for TEIFU and its upgrade to support J+H band near IR spectroscopy. 3.5.4 The IWG noted the recent article in the recent issue of PPARC's Frontiers magazine (issue 5 Autumn 1999). In this the Gemini UK Project Scientist (Pat Roche) stressed the urgency of deployment of LGS systems on the WHT. This was neccessary to ensure that the groundwork was laid to ensure subsequent LGS/AO developments in the Gemini project were successful. 3.5.5 The IWG AGREED that Laser Guide Star systems must URGENTLY be implemented to facilitate full sky coverage to the AO instrumentation package of the WHT. LDSS/TAURUS ADOPTION 4. Review of proposals received in response to the Jul 1999 LDSS/TAURUS Announcement of Opportunity 4.1 The Durham/IoA LDSS-2 bid (PI: Richard Bower) was discussed. 4.1.1 The science case was considered strong, with co-PIs drawn from the main current user base of LDSS-2 4.1.2 Exploitation of LDSS-2 on a larger telescope (Magellan) was not considered a problem. This would be a good use of this instrument and arise the ING profile, before the instrument was returned for use at the WHT. 4.1.3 NAW noted that there could be a potential problem if the Durham led proposal to PPARC to upgrade LDSS-2 to J+H band work (NIROSS) was funded. This proposal was on the basis of NIROSS being essentially available at the WHT - although available for use at other telescopes for shorter periods. Subsequently to the meeting, RGM reported that the NIROSS bid was un-funded [02/12/1999] 4.1.4. The IWG AGREED that this bid for adopting LDSS-2 should be supported but subject to the outcome of the NIROSS bid (which would be know by end 1999). The IWG suggested that a Memorandum of Understanding be drawn up to cover the use and availability to outside users of LDSS-2 on the WHT when it returned to the ING in 2002. 4.2 The Manchester TAURUS bid (PI: John Meaburn) was seen as an interesting development. The IWG suggested that the IoA team work with this team on a joint approach to TAURUS. 4.3 The IWG AGREED that the IoA TAURUS bid (PI: McMahon) contained the most coherent scientific case for exploitation of TAURUS in conjunction with the TTF 4.4 The French group TAURUS bid (PI: Boulesteix) was not considered to be a bid as such. It expressed only a hope that TAURUS would remain available for use. 4.5 The IWG AGREED that the following recommendation should be made to the Director, ING: 4.5.1. The Durham/IoA bid to adopt LDSS to be supported if the NIROSS bid (Durham, PI: Bowers) to PPARC was unsuccessful. 4.5.2. The IoA bid for TAURUS be supported. It was suggested that the IoA group contact the Manchester group to explore avenues of cooperation. It was noted that there was synergy in this as the IoA TAURUS programmes would generally exploit dark time observing periods, whereas Manchester programmes were bright time programmes. UPDATE ON CURRENT ING INSTRUMENTATION DEVELOPMENTS AND ENHANCEMENTS 5. NAW gave a brief presentation on the current on-going ING developments and enhancements. 5.1 The ING is now formally part of the UH/LL/MIT CCD development programme for 'Red' sensitive CCDs. Delivery of these devices is scheduled for Q3 2001. 5.2 NAOMI was discussed earlier - see 2.3. 5.3 NAW noted that the UltraDAS had been implemented on the WFC of the INT in Sep 1999. Readout times had been reduced to under 60 secs for the full array (this to be further reduced to <30 secs in Jan 2000 with the arrival of updated interface components). Implementation on the WHT's two CCD array prime focus camera occurred in Oct 1999. Full implementation would now occur across all ING detectors in the coming 6-9 months. 5.3.1 The UltraDAS project has been expanded in scope to include IR detectors as well. It is forseen that it will be commissioned for use with INGRID Q3 2000. 5.4 The AF2/WYFFOS enhancements are: 5.4.1 Replacement of the large 2.7 arcsec fibres with smaller 1.6 arcsec continuous fibres. This is funded within the ING enhancements line and due for commissioning Apr. 2000. 5.4.2 Redesign of the WYFFOS spectrograph to facilitate operation with a 4k x 4k CCD camera and a 2k x 2k IR array. This is also currently funded, although progress on the design at the ATC by Sue Worswick is stalled. AJL noted that there was no current ATC effort available to progress this project. 5.4.3 Implementation of a fibre module containing small fibres and ~10 deployable integral field units. This is currently un-funded. 5.4.4 Implementation of a fibre module with IR fibres for J+H fibre spectroscopy. WYFFOS would initially be used with the INGRID IR camera. This project is currently un-funded. 5.4.5 The IWG noted the importance of progressing these developments and urged the ING to investigate the possibility of transferring the WYFFOS camera redesign to an alternative group in order to speed its completion. 5.5 LIRIS development is proceeding with a planned Q3 2001 commissioning date. Details of observing access to this instrument are still to be finalised. THE ING INSTRUMENTATION WORKSHOP 6. NAW presented a brief summary of the April 1999 ING Instrumentation Workshop. He noted that it had been a successful meeting with a good attendance. The IWG considered it important that the presented papers should be made available on-line as soon as possible. [ACTION: NAW] Place the received conference papers on-line, with links from the ING IWG web pages. NETHERLANDS INSTRUMENTATION ISSUES 7. KK made the IWG aware of NL instrumentation developments. 7.1 The NL will join the SINFONI project, an AO integral field spectrograph being developed for ESO's VLT, an scheduled for a 2002 commissioning. This is a redirection of NOVA funding that was originally earmarked for ESO's ANDES near-IR fibre-fed multi-object spectrograph money. ANDES has since been canceled by ESO as it was considered to be too close, in terms of capability, to the NIRMOS spectrograph. 7.2 The Planetary Nebulae spectrograph being developed in Groningen will be commissioned at the WHT by the end of 2000. SPANISH INSTRUMENTATION ISSUES 8. NAW noted that discussions between the PPARC and GTC were currently making little progress towards ING participation in the GTC. The Netherlands had expressed no interest in participating in GTC through the ING as their share of time would be insignificant. GUARANTEED TIME FOR INSTRUMENT BUILDERS 9. NAW presented the new guaranteed time scheme for teams developing new instruments for the ING. This had been put to the October 1999 ING Board meeting by the Director, ING. The INGB had agreed this in principle. 9.1 The IWG AGREED that the concept of guaranteed time for instrument teams was a desirable development. KK noted that this was accepted practice at most other major observatories. It was thought that the science input to instrumentation teams would be strengthened, given the attraction of telescope time. This would lead to better science driven instrumentation being proposed for the ING. 9.2. The IWG did note however that there were a number of points that should be addressed in the Guaranteed Science time proposal: 9.2.1 The concept of what constitutes an instrument should be well defined. At what point does an add-on to an existing instrument become eligible for guaranteed time? The IWG considered that any instrumentation development that added a new observational capability to the ING suite should be considered an instrument. (Thus the proposed Coronograph add on to NAOMI discussed in 3.3 would be eligible for guaranteed science time.) 9.2.2 The definition of a common user instrument - one that the ING agrees to formally support - must be explicitly stated. 9.2.3 The guaranteed time science programmes should be sent to the TACs for information purposes only. Not for TAC review. 9.2.4 Awarded nights should be NOT be adjusted to account for possible time lost to bad weather. 9.2.5 The guaranteed time should be, as proposed, related to the number of nights allocated by the TACs for that instrument. However, there should be a set MINIMUM number of guaranteed nights scheduled to the instrument team. 9.2.6 The guaranteed time scheme should be subject to periodic review. ANY OTHER BUSINESS 10. Any Other Business 10.1 AJL queried whether the ING mailing list was targeting all possible user groups. He felt that the IR community was not receiving ING information. RGM stressed the need for the ING to target all possible user groups (IR, sub-mm etc), in addition to current and past users. [ACTION: NAW] to ensure that the ING mailing list is as inclusive as possible. In particular that primarily infra-red astronomers are included. 10.2 The IWG noted that more information concerning the ING instrumentation programme should be issued to the community. It was hoped that informed feedback from the user community would be promoted. 10.2.1 [ACTION: NAW] Develop IWG web pages on the ING WWW server. 10.2.2 [ACTION: NAW/RGM] Issue (via the ING Bulletin) an overview of current and proposed ING developments and enhancements to the community. 10.2.3 [ACTION: NAW] Issue the IWG minutes on the ING IWG WWW pages (subject to approval from the Director, ING). 10.3 It was AGREED that the next meeting of the IWG should be scheduled no later than April 2000 - date to be confirmed. 10.4 The meeting closed at 5.30 pm. Nicholas A Walton (IWG secretary) (orig) 22 Nov 1999 31 Jan 2000 ======================================================================== Dr N. A. Walton (ING Instrumentation Scientist) Tel: +34 922 405637 (mountain) Isaac Newton Group Tel: +34 922 425440 (sea level office) Apartado 321 FAX: +34 922 405646 (mountain - INT) 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma FAX: +34 922 425401 (sea level office) The Canary Islands, SPAIN WWW: http://www.ing.iac.es/~naw email: naw@ing.iac.es ========================================================================