Six months ago, when I wrote my first column for the JCMT Newsletter, the weather was atrocious and had been so for several months. The sense that the poor observing conditions were continuing without an end in sight exerted a pervasive influence on staff and observers alike, reminiscent of an endless Canadian prairie winter. Happily, the onset of a small El Nino improved the situation considerably over the past few months, and several excellent science results were obtained. Some of these are reported elsewhere in this Newsletter.

At the time of writing this column, I am pleased to report that the instruments and the telescope are all performing well. In particular, an in-house project to bring the figure of the primary mirror under active control has made excellent progress: thanks in part to the provision of a new holography receiver and analysis software by MRAO, we now have most of the surface under control. The current accuracy is 25µm, and the objective of this project is a surface accuracy of 21µm - although we have high hopes of ultimately getting down to below 20µm. This achievement comes at an appropriate time, since we will soon be commissioning our first 200µm instrument on the telescope (about which more below).

The other major change in the past six months is more obvious to observers: the installation and commissioning of the Observation Management Project (OMP). The objective of this project is to provide cradle-to-grave software support for managing observation projects in a fully-flexible scheduling environment. The three components of the OMP are a set of observation submission tools, a database query tool, and a feedback mechanism. The SCUBA observing tool was released to the community for semester 02B, and a heterodyne version has been introduced for internal JAC use for semester 03A. Although the learning curve for this management system has occasionally been steep for both observers and staff, the feedback we have received has been very positive. I am convinced that the OMP will pave the way for a major enhancement of the scientific productivity of the JCMT.

The heterodyne receivers continue to perform well. Rob Millenaar recently visited from Dwingeloo to carry out a refurbishment of the DAS, including the repair of a number of boards and the provision of additional spares. The DAS has served the JCMT well over several years, but its age is showing. This should be the last major engineering work on the DAS before it is replaced by ACSIS.

Users will recall that a major SCUBA upgrade was carried out in the summer of 2002 during the JCMT shutdown, with the support of Wayne Holland. The two main objectives of this work were the replacement of the indium seals and the repair of the filter drum. A long series of operational problems were encountered following this work, and a further repair to the cryogenic support system was undertaken in November 2002. Although the cryogenic fault was successfully repaired by the JAC engineering team, the two original problems unfortunately remain: replacement of the indium seals did not solve the helium migration problem, with the result that the SCUBA noise can be up to 25% high; and the filter drum remains inoperable at low temperatures. Both of these issues are under active review.

SCUBA was scheduled to be joined, in early 2003, by a new 200µm photometric instrument called THUMPER. THUMPER is funded entirely by PPARC rather than through the JCMT partnership, but with the Board's agreement is being provided to the JCMT as a common-user instrument for use by the entire community. It is currently being built by the Astronomy Instrumentation Group at the University of Wales, Cardiff. The instrument has been designed such that, from the user's point of view, it will simply look like an additional SCUBA channel. THUMPER is now scheduled to arrive at the telescope in the autumn of 2003, and will be commissioned during the remainder of semester 03B.

Looking further into the future, it will not surprise readers of this column to learn that one of my first major tasks upon assuming the Directorship was the development of a detailed long-term financial plan for the JCMT. The plan is currently with the Board for its consideration, but I can provide a summary of some of the salient points from the observer's point of view.

As the community will no doubt recall from past discussions, the JCMT will increasingly concentrate on wide-field, survey mode observations from 2006 onwards. The facility instruments will be HARP-B/ACSIS and SCUBA-2. Both HARP-B and ACSIS are making good progress, although the schedule slippage in both programmes is a major concern; I currently expect to commission ACSIS in March 2004 and HARP-B later that year.

The status of the SCUBA-2 project is unfortunately rather mixed at the time of writing. On the positive side, a proof-of-concept review of the detector array technology was held at the ATC on 21/22 November 2002. This was a critical hurdle for the project since the detectors were always the major technical risk and final approval, by both PPARC and the JCMT Board, was contingent on this review being negotiated successfully. I am delighted to report that the project passed this test with flying colours, and I can state with some conviction that there are now no major technical obstacles to the development of the SCUBA-2 instrument. On the negative side, however, my report in the previous newsletter that all of the funding was in place was, in retrospect, premature; the total cost of the project has increased significantly over the last few months. It is now clear that additional funding, likely from additional partners, will be required if the instrument is to be built to specification. This is now one of my top priorities, and I am optimistic that, with the bulk of the funds already in place, it should be possible to secure the remainder.

These new instruments will completely replace the current suite over the next three years. The long-term plan assumes that this replacement will take place according to the following schedule, which has been approved by the Board. First, receiver B3 will be retired in late 2004, having been replaced by HARP-B. SCUBA and THUMPER will then be retired in March 2005, to allow for six months of infrastructure work on the telescope in preparation for the arrival of SCUBA-2 in November 2005. Finally, receivers A3 and W will be retired a year later, in March 2006, to ensure that users have a choice of instruments during the hiatus between SCUBA and SCUBA-2. The continuing presence of RxA3 on the telescope will also ensure that poor-weather observing remains possible. Beyond April 2006, the JCMT will be fully into survey-mode observing with an instrumentation suite designed explicitly for this purpose: HARP-B/ACSIS and SCUBA-2.

These plans take no account, at the moment, of the JCMT's commitment to conduct linked interferometry with the SMA. This is a critical component of the JCMT's future, and I will be working on an implementation plan over the next few months. The instrument dispositions in the previous paragraph may come under review as this plan is developed.

Moving back to the present, I am pleased to announce the arrival of two new support astronomers. Jamie Leech and Vicki Barnard both arrived at the JAC in October as recent PhD graduates from Cambridge. Jamie worked on the laboratory development of HARP technology, and his role at the JAC will be 50% JCMT support astronomer, 50% ACSIS software. Vicki has used SCUBA on several occasions for extragalactic studies, and will make use of this experience by joining Remo Tilanus in supporting SCUBA. These appointments temporarily brought the JAC to a full complement of JCMT support astronomers, a circumstance which will end shortly with the departure of Robin Phillips in mid-March for the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Robin has filled a number of roles at the JAC: his primary responsibility has been the support of the heterodyne receivers, but he has also looked after the Water Vapour Radiometer and has assisted the work of the JCMT in a variety of other ways. His dedication to the success of the observatory has been exemplary. In his new position, Robin will be working with IRMA, the mid-infrared opacity-monitoring system being developed at Lethbridge; I wish him every success.

Robin's departure is one of several factors which has prompted me to restructure the JCMT group at the JAC. Because this redeployment is currently before the Board for approval, I cannot at present divulge the specifics; but I can certainly state that one objective of the reorganisation is to devote more effort to two specific aspects of the JCMT operations: reduction of the JCMT fault rate and management of the external development projects. I will release the details of the this reorganization to the community as soon as I am able.

I advised users in my last column that the Board had decided to review the function of the JCMT Advisory Panel. The outcome of the review was that future appointments to the JCMT Board (other than the agency representatives) should be identifiable users of the telescope, to ensure that the user perspective is brought fully into the Board's deliberations. On this basis, the Advisory Panel was disbanded. Users who seek input into the operation of the telescope or its policies are always welcome to contact me directly.

Finally, I remind users of two issues which I raised in the previous newsletter and in my letters to PIs of successful applications for telescope time in semester 03A. First, all visiting observers are firmly requested to give a 15-minute presentation at the JAC before ascending to Hale Pohaku. These presentations should focus on your observing programme: the science goals, the relevance of JCMT observations, and the observing plan. The benefits for observers and staff scientists alike are considerable. I have asked the support astronomers to contact all visiting observers in advance to arrange for this. Second, all visiting observers are invited to see me at the JAC when they come down the mountain for an exit interview. This is your chance to tell me how your run went and what we can do better next time.

It remains my personal objective to ensure that the JCMT maintains a standard of scientific and technical excellence second to none in the world. The progress we have made over the last six months, and the long-term plan we have identified for the future, are critical steps in achieving this goal.

Professor Gary Davis
Director JCMT
4 March 2003

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