CASB Report May, 2001

 

Highlights for Division Meeting

·         Delivered the GSC 2.2 Export Catalog to Gemini North and South and to ESO VLT.

·         Improved and expanded the CASB web site for this release and opened it to the public.

·         Prepared release notes and video presentation to support announcement of GSC 2.2 at the June AAS Meeting in Pasadena.

 

Community Affairs and Communications

·         McLean is attending the June AAS Meeting to announce the release of GSC 2.2

·         Asbury is attending the June AAS meeting to promote the Bright Object Tool and The Visual Target Tuner.

 

Project Management and Technical Infrastructure

·         McLean and Greene continued supporting SDSS implementation activities.

·         Greene continued supporting Independent Detector Testing Lab (IDTL) activities.

 

MISSION SUPPORT

HST Operations

·         Reviewed four Guide Star Problem Reports (GSPRs) this period.  Two GSPRs were fine lock failures. The other two were search failures due to pairs misclassified as single stars in GSC-I.   Filed a Bad GS Alert for each of the GSs.

·         With Jesse Doggett, planning the next release of the Bright Object Tool in Mid-June.  This version will tie into the newly released GSC 2.2.

·         Noted that the recent STUC meeting recommended that the 2MASS images be incorporated into the APT tool in the same manner as the DSS – started discussions with IPAC to look into this possibility.

 
NGST Development

·         Final Guide Star study report STScI-NGST-R-0013B formally delivered by Spagna to NGST division office. – Noted a major recommendation that the 2MASS catalog be incorporated into the GSC-II for NGST operations.

 

DIGITIZED SKY SURVEY

Plate Scanning

·         Resumed scanning UKST-IR plates on GAMMA1 after it was put back into production in mid-May.

 

GAMMA Microdensitometer Systems

·         Performed mechanical maintenance on GAMMA1.  Judged the performance to be nominal and the scanner was returned to production. 

·         GAMMA2 remains out of production due to a problem that is causing a feedback to the X-servo causing very unstable table motion.

 

Data Compression/CD Production

·         Continued compressing scans of the POSSII-N survey.

·         Started compressing scans of the AAO Short-Red survey.

 

Archive Maintenance

·         Worked on three archive help desk requests for help/information.

·         Continued low-level rationalization of MOD archive.

 

GSC-II

 

Plate Processing and COMPASS Database

·         Delivered the magnitude-selected GSC 2.2 Export Catalog to Gemini North and South and to ESO VLT.  The Export Catalog contains 435,457,355 objects (as compiled shortly before delivery).

·         Prepared for release of GSC 2.2 at June AAS Meeting:

·         Completed large portions of the new CASB web site unveiled at the end of May, including checking over the entire site for consistencies of “look&feel”

·         QA work continues on the GSC2.2 database and the associated export catalog.  The very large size of the dataset (nearly 2 terabytes in size with a billion database entries in 32768 files!) has made quality assessment time consuming and analysis problematic, but significant progress has been made.

·         Generated meaningful statistics resulting in a subset of the data being repaired.  Also made significant progress on the remaining southern problem fields.  Finally tracked down and fixed a subtle memory problem in the plate matching code.   Only two plates (containing over 8 million detections each!) remain unmatched due to another unrelated memory problem.

·         Ran a version of the export task without the magnitude limits and with some other minor modifications.  This uncut version has completed with only 1 missing database region (plus the 2 missing fields). Generating statistics on this version of the catalog.  The uncut version will contain nearly all the billion catalog entries and be on the order of 90 GB in size.

·         Continued processing POSSII-N and UKST-IR plates.

 

CALIBRATIONS: General

·         Attempted to perform matching of external catalogs against the exported GSC2.2 with the modified GSC22Query code, to repeat and extend the comparisons and quality assurance of the catalog that was performed on the GSC2.1 data. This work could not be completed, however, due to unpredictable and unrepeatable failures of the query when run in batch mode over thousands of catalog objects. No such problems were encountered when matching against the GSC2.1. These critical investigations are on hold until the problem can be either solved or worked around. (A partial workaround is in progress at OATo using the GSC2.1 query code to query the GSC2.2. However this does not return all data necessary for quality assurance of the catalog.)

 

CALIBRATIONS: Astrometry

·         Continued a study on a magnitude dependent systematic error in the GSC 2.2 positions. This study compares the position in the GSC 2.2 (GSC 2.1) with those in the SPM, NPM, USNO A and 2MASS catalogs.

 

CALIBRATIONS: Classification

·         Modified the OC1 decision tree program to use the data in a FITS-formatted training set file to produce the correct auxiliary tables for the FITS-formatted decision tree files. Added columns to the FITS output file to include minimum and maximum values of the parameters for the training set objects at each node.

·         Wrote a small utility program to combine several FITS decision trees into a single FITS file.

·         Modified VERCLASS, the versatile classification task presently in development, to read the additional minima and maxima described above

 

CALIBRATIONS: Photometry (GSPC-II and DSS-I and -II)

·         Jane Morrison observed seven nights at La Palma (May 26 – Jun 01)

·         Brian McLean observed six nights at La Palma (Apr 27 – May 02)

·         Next run June 26-Jul 04

 

GSC-II Science 

·         F. Guglielmetti continued production of a new Planetary Nebula catalog with improved coordinates from GSC2.1.

 


 

Appendix – CASB Statistical Summary

 

SCANNING                                                                                                                                                                         

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

658

16

674

75

 

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

301

6

307

33

 

3

Rescans

 

34

0

34

 

 

 

 

COMPRESSION

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

577

40

617

69

 

3

AAO SES

606

606

0

606

100

 

1

PPARC ER

288

288

0

288

100

 

1

AAO-SR

118

0

90

90

76

 

3

UKST-IR

894

658

0

658

74

 

3

 


 

 

 

MO DISK ARCHIVING

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

0

823

92

 

           4

AAO-SES

606

613

0

613

100

 

3

PPARC-ER

288

288

0

288

100

 

3

AAO-SR

109

73

43

116

100

 

4

UKST-IR

894

658

0

658

74

 

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-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

82

49

131

15

 

4

SERC-J/EJ 

     894

829

0

829

93

 

1

South-F

894

894

0

894

100

 

1

UKST-IR

894

15

57

72

8

 

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

13

574

98

P1

1

POSS-II

314

171

14

185

59

 

1

SERC

894

884

0

884

99

 

1

 

GSPC-II REDUCTIONS

Survey

Goal

Previous Month

Current Month

Current Total

% done

Notes

Priority

POSS-I

584

563

0

563

96

P1

1

POSS-II

314

175

0

175

56

 

1

SERC

894

901

0

901

100

 

1