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JCMT Board report - November 1999Report from the JCMT Board meetingheld on 18-19 November 1999 at the JAC, Hilo HawaiiThe Board met at the JAC under its new Chairman, Professor Ernie Seaquist (U. Toronto) and with a new UK member, Professor Mark Birkinshaw (U. Bristol). The main issues for the meeting were discussion and endorsement of the proposals for new development and taking forward the recommendations of the recent JCMT Review.
DevelopmentThe Board's immediate vision for the JCMT was to maintain and develop a balanced programme in both continuum and spectral line astronomy. This would be realised by moving forward the existing HARP initiatives expeditiously and by transforming the existing vision for a wide field continuum imaging instrument into a full scale project as soon as feasible. The Board fully supported the operation of the JCMT as part of the Smithsonian submillimetre array (SMA). As well as clear scientific benefits, this would also give the JCMT community the chance to become familiar with interferometric observations at sub-millimetre wavelengths well in advance of the advent of ALMA.In line with this vision, the Board approved the revised B band heterodyne array (Harp B) project to be undertaken by the MRAO, Cambridge, UKATC and HIA Canada, utilising junctions supplied by SRON. The Board approved the D band array receiver proposed by the Netherlands and MPIfR, Germany (Champ D), in principle, subject to resolution of certain issues to the JCMT Director and Board's satisfaction. The issues to be resolved included the detailed specification of the instrument on the JCMT (such as telescope coupling and interfaces) and the length of time the instrument is to be available to the JCMT community. It was clear that the science which a second generation SCUBA instrument could deliver was of the highest priority. The development of an instrument to deliver this science had the full support of the scientific community and the strong endorsement of the Advisory Panel. The proposed SCUBA2 would build upon the success of SCUBA and provide a world-beating, wide-field continuum mapping capability, complementary to ALMA. The Board agreed to support the proposed SCUBA2 project through a pre-design phase, which would take place before its next meeting. The total cost of SCUBA2 could not be supported from the currently planned Development Fund and efforts would need to be made to find new resources.
Operations and Strategic PlanningThe Board was sympathetic to the considerable pressure on the Joint Operations Budget, which was largely due to a lack compensation over several years for the effect of inflation. It agreed a revised Budget for this year to provide some immediate relief and to continue this relief into next year. Although the agreed compensation went some way to correcting for the effects of inflation, there remained a significant and on-going problem. The Director JCMT agreed to bring forward a paper to its next meeting, via the JCMT Advisory Panel, which:(i) addressed the requirement to appropriately and sustainably fund the current operational model for the JCMT; (ii) set out options which might need to be considered to deliver the programme within the currently planned budget. The Board fully supported the Director JCMT's intention to return to 16 hour operation, once the newly recruited TSSs are in post and have been given appropriate training.
Operating modelThe JCMT Review had suggested a number of alternative operating modes for the JCMT which might help focus resources. The Board asked the Director JCMT to bring forward reports covering these for discussion at the next meeting.
Guaranteed timeThe Board endorsed a scheme for the implementation of guaranteed observing time for common user instrumentation building teams. Under the scheme, teams would be eligible for a guaranteed number of shifts spread over a minimum of two semesters.
Data archivingThe Board agreed that the default for release of astronomical data for open access, from all observing programmes, should be one year following the semester in which the observations were taken. However, users will be given the option of requesting this be withheld in special cases.Colin Vincent JCMT Board Secretary |