CASB Report July,
2001
·
Provided a
copy of the full unpublished GSC 2.2.1 (998,402,801 objects) to the XMM X-ray Mission for use in testing
and evaluation for possible integration into XMM Mission operations.
·
Completed an updated
version of the GSC 2.2.01 export catalog with a 4% increase in size
(455,851,237 entries) from the initial release. Obtained 100% all sky coverage in two
bandpasses with this release and corrected some plate processing issues.
· McLean attended the SPIE meeting on Astronomical Data Analysis where NVO issues were discussed.
· Laidler attended the Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy III conference, and presented a poster on “Canaries in the Data Mine”, incorporating the latest results from the classification work with imprinting.
· Hosted several tours of the plate vault and scanning facility including tours for the annual STScI family day.
·
McLean and Greene continued supporting SDSS planning
activities.
·
Laidler and McLean worked with SSG management to
produce a transition plan for Laidler’s upcoming transfer to SSG that will
permit her ongoing participation in the GSC2 project and classification
research even after her transition is complete. We thank SSG management for their flexibility in this matter.
·
Also working with SSG to retain Wolfe part-time to
assist with COMPASS DB management after he transfers.
· Reviewed two Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period. Both GSPRs were fine lock failures. Filed a Bad GS Alert for each of the GSs.
· With Matt Lallo, continued investigating HOPRs 542 and 699, failures to find an Orion target.
· Rusty Whitman, while testing the Visual Target Tuner (VTT), correctly identified a GSC-I entry as the position of Barnard’s Star (10” annual proper motion) in 1982.5, the epoch of the associated plate. Filed a Bad GS Alert for this star to prevent possible GS selection.
· Work is continuing on the Bright Object Tool in the VTT with the next release scheduled in the December timeframe.
·
· Continued scanning POSSI-O plates between shipments from ROE.
·
Continued
compressing scans of the POSSII-N survey.
·
Completed
compressing scans of the AAO Short-Red survey.
·
Started
compressing scans of the POSSI-O survey.
· Developing a plan for porting the GetImage software, used to get a DSS image given a set of coordinates, from VMS to NT. Starting to write up requirements and an implementation plan to complete the project.
· Worked on four archive help desk requests for help/information.
· Continued low-level rationalization of MOD archive.
·
Completed a new version
of the GSC2 Export catalog (GSC 2.2.01).
This version contains about a 4% increase in the catalog size
(455,851,237 total entries) as well as fixing many of the bugs contained in the
first release. Obtained complete 100%
all sky coverage in two bandpasses with this release. Plates still remain with potential matching problems, but all
plates have now been loaded and run successfully through the matching
routine. Simple statistics have been
compiled over this export catalog showing improvement over the previous
release.
·
Completed a new version
of the full (no magnitude selection) export catalog. This version, GSC 2.2.1,
is not yet publicly available. The new uncut version contains nearly one
billion entries; full statistics have yet to be compiled.
·
Provided a tape copy of
the full GSC2.2.1 to the XMM X-ray Mission for use in testing and evaluation
for possible integration into XMM Mission operations.
·
Using object density
maps kindly provided by OATo, investigated catalog problem areas that escaped a
simple statistical analysis. A few
problems have emerged which affect a small percentage of the data. A sample of the problems shows areas where
matching was performed twice (resulting in two entries for one object) and
areas where photometric and/or astrometric calibrations may not match
surrounding plates correctly.
·
Developed some simple
visualization tools to help in the evaluation of areas on the sky where
possible calibration problems exist. These will show up unambiguously along the
plate boundaries.
·
Continued to receive a
considerable number of data requests through our web page query.
·
Continued to
investigate user inquiries regarding the GSC2 data set. Several small problems
affecting export fields for several plates have been corrected as a result of
user inquires.
·
Continued to maintain a
web page containing known bugs and limitations of the GSC2.2, and announced the
release of the “patch version” GSC2.2.01 on the web page.
·
Continued processing
POSSII-N and UKST-IR plates.
· Working on understanding the systematic errors in GSC 2 positions, which are a function of magnitude and distance from the center of the plate. Using the SPM to quantify the effect.
· Continued modifications to VERCLASS, the versatile classification task presently in development. Significant milestones this month include the ability to read and manage several families of decision trees with noncongruent sets of features and classes; to apply them to each object selectively or in combination based on their application criteria; and to report the final statistics to the DID file. This completes the removal of the previously hardcoded restrictions on features, classes, and trees. VERCLASS can now be used to classify a plate using separate decision trees for bright and faint objects (with some tunable overlap), resulting in output classes of [star, galaxy, blend] for bright objects, and [star, nonstar, defect] for faint objects.
· Additional software activities with VERCLASS include implementing the use of the imprinting technique to disqualify votes from less reliable decision trees in determining the final classification. Experiments comparing the results of disqualified voting from all-tree voting indicate that the change in voting procedure changes the final classification in ~1-3% of the objects; that the results can change even if only one of the five trees is disqualified; and that the changed classifications are correct in 60-75% of the examined cases. This is extremely promising.
CALIBRATIONS: Photometry
(GSPC-II and DSS-I and -II)
· From the first two La Palma runs in 2001, obtained 42 POSS-II, 16 POSS-I, and one SERC sequences for GSPC-II under photometric conditions.
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
|
POSS-II
J |
897 |
902 |
0 |
902 |
100 |
S4 |
1 |
|
POSS-II
F |
897 |
910 |
0 |
910 |
100 |
S4 |
1 |
|
POSS-II
N |
897 |
880 |
0 |
880 |
98 |
S4 |
1 |
|
AAO-SES |
606 |
614 |
0 |
614 |
100 |
S4 |
1 |
|
PPARC-ER |
288 |
288 |
0 |
288 |
100 |
|
1 |
|
AAO-SR |
118 |
118 |
0 |
118 |
100 |
S2 |
- |
|
UKST-SR
|
112 |
50 |
0 |
50 |
45 |
S5 |
3 |
|
UKST-IR |
894 |
697 |
0 |
697 |
78 |
S6 |
2 |
|
SERC-J/EJ |
447 |
443 |
0 |
443 |
99 |
S1 |
2 |
|
POSS-I
E |
106 |
106 |
0 |
106 |
100 |
S3 |
3 |
|
POSS-I
O |
936 |
319 |
35 |
354 |
38 |
|
3 |
|
Rescans |
|
34 |
0 |
34 |
|
|
|
|
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-II
J |
897 |
895 |
0 |
897 |
100 |
|
2 |
POSS-II
F |
897 |
897 |
0 |
897 |
100 |
|
1 |
POSS-II
N |
897 |
645 |
36 |
681 |
76 |
|
3 |
AAO
SES |
606 |
606 |
0 |
606 |
100 |
|
1 |
PPARC
ER |
288 |
288 |
0 |
288 |
100 |
|
1 |
AAO-SR |
118 |
118 |
0 |
118 |
100 |
|
3 |
UKST-IR |
894 |
674 |
23 |
697 |
78 |
|
3 |
POSS-I
O |
936 |
0 |
20 |
20 |
2 |
|
3 |
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-II
J |
897 |
902 |
0 |
902 |
100 |
|
4 |
POSS-II
F |
897 |
900 |
0 |
900 |
100 |
|
3 |
POSS-II
N |
897 |
823 |
10 |
833 |
93 |
|
4 |
AAO-SES |
606 |
613 |
0 |
613 |
100 |
|
3 |
PPARC-ER |
288 |
288 |
0 |
288 |
100 |
|
3 |
AAO-SR |
109 |
116 |
0 |
116 |
100 |
|
4 |
UKST-IR |
894 |
658 |
39 |
697 |
78 |
|
5 |
SERC-J/EJ |
894 |
892 |
0 |
892 |
100 |
|
|
SERC-J/REPAIR |
48 |
48 |
0 |
48 |
100 |
|
|
SERC-J/15mu |
449 |
449 |
0 |
449 |
100 |
|
5 |
POSS-I
E |
933 |
928 |
0 |
928 |
99 |
|
2 |
POSS-I
REPAIR |
198 |
198 |
0 |
198 |
100 |
|
2 |
POSS-I
O |
936 |
0 |
20 |
20 |
2 |
|
5 |
POSS-QV |
613 |
613 |
0 |
613 |
100 |
|
- |
SERC-QV |
94 |
94 |
0 |
94 |
100 |
|
- |
GPO/BB |
88 |
88 |
0 |
88 |
100 |
|
- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GSC-II PLATE PROCESSING
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-I
E |
936 |
931 |
0 |
931 |
99 |
|
3 |
POSS-QV |
613 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
|
3 |
POSS-II
J |
897 |
897 |
0 |
897 |
100 |
|
1 |
POSS-II
F |
897 |
897 |
0 |
897 |
100 |
|
1 |
POSS-II
N |
897 |
151 |
36 |
187 |
21 |
|
4 |
SERC-J/EJ |
894 |
829 |
0 |
829 |
93 |
|
1 |
South-F |
894 |
894 |
0 |
894 |
100 |
|
1 |
UKST-IR |
894 |
109 |
55 |
164 |
18 |
|
4 |
South-SR |
116 |
116 |
0 |
116 |
100 |
|
2 |
South-QV |
94 |
94 |
0 |
94 |
100 |
|
2 |
GSC-II COMPASS DATABASE LOAD (no.objects = 998,402,801)
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-I
E |
936 |
23 |
0 |
23 |
2 |
|
3 |
POSS-QV |
613 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
|
3 |
POSS-II
J |
897 |
897 |
0 |
897 |
100 |
|
1 |
POSS-II
F |
897 |
899 |
0 |
899 |
100 |
|
1 |
POSS-II
N |
897 |
27 |
0 |
27 |
3 |
|
4 |
SERC-J |
894 |
709 |
0 |
709 |
79 |
|
1 |
South-F |
894 |
742 |
0 |
742 |
83 |
|
1 |
UKST-IR |
894 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
|
4 |
South-SR |
116 |
116 |
0 |
116 |
100 |
|
2 |
South-QV |
94 |
90 |
0 |
90 |
96 |
|
2 |
GSC-II Dataset for V2.2.n delivery (1791
Fields, 3438 plates) (P1)
Item |
Count |
% done |
Notes |
Plates
available |
3438 |
100 |
|
Plates
processed |
3438 |
100 |
|
DB
Load |
3438 |
100 |
|
Fields, minus the 72 southern equatorial fields,
with 1644 plates.
GSPC-II OBSERVATIONS
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-I |
584 |
561 |
10 |
571 |
98 |
P1 |
1 |
POSS-II |
314 |
171 |
42 |
213 |
68 |
|
1 |
SERC |
894 |
868 |
16 |
884 |
99 |
|
1 |
GSPC-II REDUCTIONS
Survey |
Goal |
Previous Month |
Current Month |
Current Total |
% done |
Notes
|
Priority |
POSS-I |
584 |
563 |
8 |
571 |
98 |
P1 |
1 |
POSS-II |
314 |
175 |
0 |
175 |
56 |
|
1 |
SERC |
894 |
884 |
17 |
901 |
100 |
|
1 |