Top End

Andy Adamson

Head of UKIRT Operations/Director of Science

If relentless change is good for the health, then UKIRT staff will be up for the Ironman shortly. At the time of writing the current issue of the newsletter, we have just cooled down our next major instrument, UIST, in the Hilo lab, and are planning the move of Michelle to Gemini. On the software front we have been testing the OMP software in service time and are close to switching to it for all observing (classical and otherwise), and the major future change in terms of flexible scheduling is in the planning stage. To make life more interesting still, all of the above is happening at a time when the JAC Directorship is changing hands!

Following from a decision taken at the UKIRT Board meeting in July, flexible scheduling will be the default mode of observing at UKIRT from Semester 03A onwards. Our approach to this has been conservative: we have done the simple flexing experiments in which some of you have taken part over the past two years, we have modelled the expected performance of flexible versus classical scheduling over whole semesters, and we have generated the observation preparation and execution tools and data feedback mechanisms: ORAC and the OMP. The time is now so clearly ripe to make this change that it would be hard to argue that we should not do so. Therefore, from semester 03A onwards, UKIRT will begin to take fullest advantage of its privileged position on Mauna Kea by using the best observing conditions for programmes which need them, and by maximizing the completion rates of the highest-rated science programmes. The extent to which we believe the latter criterion will be met is detailed in a short article in this issue, and a full operational model is presented on the UKIRT web pages. We invite all UKIRT users to read this page and comment on it, because this is essentially how UKIRT will operate from 03A onwards. Following on from a period of relative stability in UKIRT scheduling, this change is a major one (and one which other telescopes are also undertaking). The positive and helpful attitude of UKIRT observers has been the key to the success of the flexing experiments carried out to date, and will be key to the success of full flexing in 2003.

As you will have seen from the front cover of this issue, the turquoise UIST cryostat is currently cold in the Hilo Laboratory of the JAC, following an apparently uneventful trip over two oceans and one continent. Much has happened in the time between the last newsletter and this one, including successful acceptance tests of the instrument's hardware and electronics, followed by a protracted investigative period when the array noise was brought down to acceptable levels. Within a few weeks we will be shipping UIST to the summit and preparing for night-time commissioning. UKIRT is very grateful to the UIST team for their intense hard work and the aplomb with which they have tackled all the obstacles which have been found in their path over the previous six months. We now look forward to a successful science commissioning period and the start of science observing.

WFCAM continues to press towards completion, with the major optical ordering complete. The tests carried out at JAC in February, alluded to in the previous Top End, were in the end entirely successful. We will be able to drive the big WFCAM secondary mirror with the existing piezo stage, suffering only a slight reduction in correction rate - completely consistent with current autoguiding practice. In a major advance, the agreement by which the Japanese astronomical community gains access to UKIRT through the provision of three of the four WFCAM Hawaii-II arrays, was signed in June 2003, by Professors Robson and Karoji of JAC and Subaru respectively. At the time of writing, the first Japanese observers are to take up their time under this agreement, and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration both now and when WFCAM revolutionizes infrared survey astronomy in 2004.