JCMT Instrument Program

The JCMT instrument program is funded from the JCMT development fund under the control of the JCMT board. However, the cost for the SCUBA-2 project exceeded the resources of the development fund. Additional funding for SCUBA-2 has been provided by grants from the UK Office for Science and Technology and the Canada Fund for Innovation. The instruments funded through the JCMT board are operated and maintained by the JCMT staff and supported for use by all users without any special knowledge or conditions ("common user instrumentation").

In addition JCMT has "visitor instrument" which are funded externally to the JCMT instrument program. Time on visitor instruments are made available to JCMT user community by agreements with the instrument builders. The agreement will depend on many factors and varies from case to case. The conditions can be found in the call for proposals or in the current issue of the JCMT newsletter.

Instruments funded through the JCMT board

ACSIS

Auto-Correlation Spectrometer and Imaging System (ACSIS) is an up to 32-channel correlator with a sampling rate of 2 GHz. The useful bandwidth in each of the 32 correlators is at least 850 MHz or 200 MHz in the high-resolution mode. At the JCMT ACSIS will be equipped with an IF system supporting maximum 16 inputs. Each of the inputs will be serviced by two correlates giving a minimum usable bandwidth of 1.7 GHz in each channel. Peak data acquisition speed is 20 spectra per second and channel, which enables ACSIS to support rapid large-scale mapping. ACSIS is developed with a "real time" data reduction system able to handle the 10Mbyte/s peak data rate. The data reduction system will allow the observer to stay on top of the observations and carry away reduced data. ACSIS has been delivered to the telescope and is being commissioned during the autumn of 2005. For further information see the JCMT ACSIS page or the DRAO ACSIS home page.

HARP-B

Heterodyne ARray Program (HARP). HARP-B is a 16 channel 350 GHz band ("B-band") heterodyne focal plan array under construction. Each channel will have state of the art noise performance. The tuning range is 325 - 375 GHz and special care has been taking to ensure good calibration. HARP-B has been delivered to the JCMT and is being commissioned during late 2005/early 2006. For further information see the JCMT HARP-B page, the MRAO HARP-B home page, or the original science case.

eSMA: SMA-JCMT-CSO interferometry

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed for linking up the JCMT and SMA to create a submm array with higher resolution and more than twice the collecting area than the SMA interferometer itself. Technical tests with the SMA, JCMT and CSO are ongoing during the autumn of 2005. First fringes between the SMA and JCMT were obtained on July 12, 2005 at 11:07HST and a frequency of 267 GHz. More recently the CSO successfully joined into the array.For more information see the eSMA page.

SCUBA-2

Submm Common User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2). A planned bolometer array at 850 and 450 micron with ~10000 pixels. SCUBA-2 is a very ambitious project aiming to repeat the revolution in continuum mapping generated by SCUBA. The project is starting the construction phase and expected delivery of the first installment is late 2006. For more information see the ATC SCUBA-2 page (JAC is contributing to the data reduction pipeline development).

Rover

ROVing polarimetER is a polarimeter intended to be used with heterodyne receivers at any telescope. Rover is funded by a grant from PPARC to Jane Greaves. Rover is currently being commissioned and tested at IRAM. The JAC will contribute some of the instrument software as well as maintain and support the instrument at the JCMT. Thus it will be operated as a common user instrument. Rover is expected to stay at the JCMT after the JCMT commissioning with the exception of potential shorter visits to other telescope. Commissioning is expected in 2004 after commissioning of ACSIS. For more information see the Rover home page.

Potential Visitor Instruments

ZEUS

The redshift (Z) and Early Universe Spectrometer (ZEUS) is a potential visitor instrument for the JCMT. ZEUS was constructed at Cornell and is a long slit echelle grating spectrometer operating at 610, 450 and 350 micron. ZEUS has a resolving power of R ~ 1000 optimized for detecting broad faint lines from extra galactic sources. The detector is a 4x32 pixel array of pop-up bolometers with transition edge sensors read by SQUID multiplexed readout.

AzTEC

AzTEC (Bolocam II) is a bolometer array intended for the LMT in Mexico. Due to the delay of the LMT AzTEC hgas come to the JCMT for a limited timeas a visiting instrument. The instrument has 144 bolometers operating at 1.1mm with an estimated sensitivity of 30mJy*sqrt(s). Using on the fly mapping the speed is estimated to 23 arcmin²/hr/mJy². AzTEC was successfully commissioned on the JCMT with its engineering array in June, 2005 and is scheduled to carry out an extensive observing program with its newly installed science array during the final two months of 2005.

Telescope Systems Upgrade Projects

Active Surface Project

The project aims to correct for the thermal deformations of the JCMT dish. These deformations are most apparent in the early evening up to ~ 9 PM and after sunrise. The JCMT surface adjuster system was not designed for continuous operation; thus the surface will be adjusted a few times each evening and morning. Even with a few adjustment the bulk of the loss in efficiency can be recovered. To validate the approach, engineering time has been allocated for testing the adjuster fault rate after a large set of moves. The test will also show if there is any degradation in the dish generated by backlash and lost steps after a large number of adjustments. The test will be performed on a small subset on the dish to reduce the risk to the surface performance.

The dish temperature monitor system is now operational. Surface deformation maps together with the temperature maps will be compared with the thermal FEA model. The intent is to validate the FEA model so it can be used to generate a set of look up tables, which will be used for correcting the surface. The main deformation is higher order spherical aberration.

The OCS and OMP project

The Observatory Control System (OCS) and Observation Management project (OMP) are mainly internal projects. However, part of the projects are done at the Astronomy Technology Centre (ATC) in Edinburgh and funded through the development fund.

The Observation Management Project is essential for operating flexible scheduling. It allows the PI to manage the observing without being present at the telescope. PIs are encouraged to be involved and are given the facilities to monitor progress, comment on the program and has full ability to update the program. Further most of the, routine and time consuming, bookkeeping is automated decreasing the workload on local staff. The OMP is now almost fully implemented at the JCMT and UKIRT.

The Observatory Control System is an upgrade required for the new instruments with more demanding observing modes. The synchronization between antenna, secondary and the data acquisition with ACSIS or SCUBA-2 is not worth to consider with the current system. The observing recipes will specify modes executed by the system in the OCS. Thus, new modes are simpler to implement and can be commissioned without high risk of breaking old modes. Further, well defined interfaces between the instrument tasks and the OCS has been established. This makes the observing recipes more generic reducing the work to implement and maintain the observing modes for different instruments. The OCS includes an error reporting and logging system and connections between computers are managed to reduce connection problem. The project will also limit the use of VAX VMS systems to old instrumentation, which is scheduled for decommissioning 2005 to 2006.