Fabry-Perot Etalon now available with UFTI

Chris Davis & Sandy Leggett

UKIRT's low-resolution Fabry-Perot etalon for the K band was recently commissioned on UFTI. The images shown here (figure 1) and on the front cover of this newsletter illustrate the capabilities of the instrument when used in conjunction with UKIRT's high-resolution, near-IR imager, UFTI (note that these data represent just a few minutes of integration on-source!)

The etalon has a spacing of 40 microns, a Finesse of ~25 across the K band, and a nominal resolution with UFTI of 400 km/sec when properly aligned. The FP is mounted on ISU2, about 6 inches away from the UFTI entrance window. Consequently, because the infrared beam is converging at this point, the resolution is a little worse with UFTI than it was with IRCAM 3. However, the phase shift between the centre and the edge of the UFTI+FP field of view should be shallower. This has yet to be measured, though with IRCAM 3 it was approximately 160 km/sec. Thus, one setting of the FP is sufficient to accurately image an unresolved line across the entire unvignetted field which, with UFTI, measures approximately 70 arcsec.

True-colour image of the planetary nebula NGC 3132 taken during recent commissioning of the 400 km/s FP with UFTI. The image comprises of H₂ (red), Br-gamma (green) and continuum (blue) data.

The stability of the FP is known to be very high compared to older etalons; during nights on which it has been used with IRCAM 3 the thermal drift was less than one resolution element.

A number of narrow-band filters are available for use with the FP to block unwanted orders. Check the UFTI web pages for a list of filters currently installed in UFTI, or contact the instrument scientist, Chris Davis (c.davis@jach.hawaii.edu).

A second engineering night is scheduled for March 2000, after which further characterisation information will be made available on the UFTI+FP web pages ( UFTI+FP web pages ). An ORACDR recipe written by Malcolm Currie specifically for use with the FP will also be tested.

ORAC is coming!

Frossie Economou

UKIRT, Joint Astronomy Centre

The ORAC project, which replaces all UKIRT software that interacts with the observer, was commissioned with UFTI in October 1999 (see, for example, the true-colour image of HH 1 in the Research News section of this newsletter; these data were acquired and reduced with the full ORAC system). Some of you will have used one of its components, the ORAC-DR pipeline before that. During the commissioning, our support scientists were so taken with it that we decided, rather than release it to users just for UFTI, to retro-fit it to CGS4 and IRCAM and deploy it in one fell swoop for all active UKIRT instruments - a project that we are calling the ORAC Big Bang; this is currently scheduled for completion later this spring.

What does this mean to UKIRT observers? If your run is scheduled before the Big Bang date, not a lot - besides an increased amount of software day-work (that should not affect your run) and small changes in the computer lay-out of the UKIRT control room. However, if you arrive after the new software is in place, things will be quite different, so you should plan on spending some extra time in Hilo with your support scientist so that you can learn how to use the new system. PATT has agreed to fund an extra day in Hilo for the first semester of ORAC use.

For more information about ORAC, consult the web page at the ATC or its mirror at the JAC. In addition to exhaustive documentation you will find pictures of the commissioning data (look under "news")

ORAC-DR RELEASED TO STARLINK

ORAC-DR, the data reduction pipeline in use at UKIRT and JCMT for the on-line processing of data from UFTI, SCUBA and IRCAM/TUFTI, has been released to Starlink and will be on the Starlink Spring 2000 CD-ROM. This public release will allow UKIRT and JCMT observers to re-reduce their data at their home institutions if they so wish. This might be of particular interest to UFTI observers, since we do not provide observers with copies of their reduced data directory on their data tape due to the high volume of data that the instrument generates in a typical observing night.

Although ORAC-DR is intended for on-line data reduction at the telescope, it frequently produces publication quality results. For more information on ORAC-DR try here .

Remore eavesdropping at UKIRT with WORF

Chris Davis

UKIRT/Joint Astronomy Centre

For those of you who don't know, remote eavesdropping is available, from your home institute, with both UFTI and CGS4. With the 11 hour time difference between Hawaii Standard Time and GMT, this facility could well be just the ticket for your UK collaborators!

WORF stands for "WWW Observing Remotely Facility". The aim is to allow astronomers to monitor their data during real-time acquisition via the World Wide Web. The system allows co-investigators to assess the quality of the observations while imposing no additional duties on the actual observer at the telescope. The user has the ability to examine both current and earlier data, plot images and spectra, control the colour table and scaling functions and examine the weather statistics. It does not grant access to the observatory computers, however, so the WORF user is unable to "interfere" with the actual data acquisition.

Clearly, WORF may be of considerable use to co-investigators who have not travelled to the telescope but who wish to assist in data interpretation and thereby help determine observing strategy.

For further information please see the WORF web pages . For access to WORF please contact your support scientist well before the first night of your observing run. A description of Worf also appeared in; "Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems V", A.S.P. Conference Series, Vol. 101, 1996, eds. Jacoby & Barnes, p.384.

Results from our brief flexible scheduling experiment

John Davies

UKIRT/Joint Astronomy Centre

There is an increasing desire to maximise telescope productivity by moving towards flexible scheduling in order to take advantage of specific, but rare, conditions. Typical of these desirable but sometimes rare conditions are good seeing (generally for imaging projects) and low water vapour column for most kinds of mid-infrared observing. With the image quality now available at UKIRT and with the soon-to-be-delivered Michelle imager-spectrograph, UKIRT stands to reap enormous gains from flexible scheduling and so the UKIRT board directed us to carry out a flexible experiment during 1999B. The objective was to test protocols, observing tools and human issues during flexible scheduling using visiting, rather than staff, observers.

At the summer PATT meeting, three pairs of projects which appeared to have complementary observing requirements were identified and linked. The pairs of projects were scheduled contiguously and it was intended that only one observing team from each pair would come to the telescope and then ``Flex'' between projects according to the conditions. In an attempt to simplify the potentially traumatic decision on when to switch projects the UKIRT staff defined, in as great a detail as possible, specific rules on how conditions were to be measured, for how long they must be stable before initiating a change of project and how time would be accounted in the event of bad weather, system failures or the triggering of other PATT approved over-rides (such as a Gamma-Ray Burst).

The three pairs of projects chosen for the experiment were: i) two projects to image different galaxy clusters which had different seeing requirements, ii) an extragalactic "good seeing project" plus some Service Observing and, iii) another "good seeing" project plus an L-band spectroscopy project which needed good 3um transmission but with no specific seeing requirements.

All three pairs of runs took place as scheduled, with various combinations of observers, their students and staff observers present at UKIRT. A comparison of what actually happened with what would have happened in a classical schedule showed that the flexed runs did indeed achieve more time on target in conditions within their criteria than would have been achieved otherwise. Fortunately the observers who benefitted from the experiment recognised that they did obtain more time on target in conditions suited to their project.

SOME LESSONS LEARNED

• Some absent observers asked for sequences of observations which would have over-run their allocated time by large amounts. So in flexible scheduling modes the observation preparation tool must make due allowance for overhead.
• Observers found that flexing between two broadly similar projects, such as two galaxy imaging projects which differed mainly in terms of the seeing required, was fairly straightforward. However, switching between imaging and spectroscopy, or between a specific imaging project and a service queue in which each observation was very different, was rather more demanding.
• A robust data reduction pipeline with adequate diagnostic tools is essential

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, it was an interesting and quite challenging experiment which taught us a lot about how to operate in this way. Pairing projects in this way increases the chances of -- but does not guarantee that -- a difficult project will get any specific conditions needed. For the less demanding observer it may increase the likelihood of getting a full allocation of clear time since moderate but still usable conditions can be creamed off from the time allocated to the more demanding project. If you are interested in being flexed in this way, please note it in the technical section of your next PATT proposal.

We thank the observers (who have deliberately not been identified) for their patience and co-operation during the observing and their openness when discussing their experiences. More details will be in a paper by John Davies and Andy Adamson at the March 2000 SPIE meeting; there is also a link to this paper from John Davies' web-page

View From the Top

Thor Wold

UKIRT/Joint Astronomy Centre

Well, here we are in another new semester, and puhleeze do not tell me a new century. I can count. I tried to tell myself I would not go non-linear over this idiocy, but towards the end of the year the level of ignorance was really hard to take. Especially when it came from allegedly intelligent sectors of society.

Finally, measures are afoot for realigning and inproving Saddle Road. It will be still years before those of us who commute up from the east side of the island see any real changes; the first changes will be on the west end and through the Pohakuloa Training Area. Still, the fact that after all these years something is actually about to happen is awesome. Some of us who have lived here for decades were beginning to wonder if we would even live to see this. Secretly, it seems, the construction of the very long-awaited Puainako Street Extension has started. I say secretly, because there has been no notification in the local rag or any other newspaper for that matter. One just suddenly sees bulldozers starting to open a route through the bush. This will connect Komohana Street, just a block or so south of the JAC office, with upper Kaumana where it starts to become Saddle Road. Folks travelling between the office to HP will therefore be able to avoid the winding miles of narrow Kaumana Drive. So perhaps I erred somewhat above; since this becomes somewhat a part of the Saddle Road complex, technically this is an improvement on the east side. However, I feel vindicated because since it has not been announced publicly, it must not be happening yet. Not even a ground-breaking ceremony or anything. Is it a figment of my imagination?

On the other end of your journey up the Saddle Road, there have been some changes at Your Vacation Resort Hale Pohaku. October saw the retirement of long-time Camp Manager Jimmy Nojiri. I love that the post is called Camp Manager. It truely does seem like a Camp. Jimmy's replacement is Alan Hara. The end of the year saw the replacement of the twin beds in building B with queen-sized beds. I came up on January 1st (yes, I was given the chore of picking up the Y2K pieces--fortunately, there were none!) to find the hallways upstairs lined with the old beds, lying on their sides. Alas, this made it real difficult to squeeze through, carrying all my stuff, without banging and making noise. Sadly, this situation continued until after I left on the 7th, and other folks had the same problems wending their way through the obstacle course, which meant being awakened many times. Anyway, you incoming visitors now have real beds to look forward to. That is, unless you are a reprobate addict and get imprisoned in building C with the evil smokers. C still has the old beds.

They put the old beds on sale and I bought two. Yes, I know-- everyone is still asking me if I have taken leave of my senses. After 15 years of spending at least a third of my life (so that is 5 years) sleeping on these things, why in heaven's name would I BUY one?? OK, I guess this shows that one does leave one's senses by being up top so much but then there is also that heavy aura of nostalgia. After all, it was on these pieces of furniture that I learned to turn over in my sleep without moving sideways. The hard way. I awoke on the floor a few times before I perfected this maneuver. And hey--since they are solid oak and all, they are substantial pieces of furniture, albeit narrow. And short. So I got them for visitors at my house. You know what they always say: don't make things TOO comfy for visitors or they might stay too long.

There is a bit of difficulty, though, fitting queen-sized beds in a space made for cribs. The oak end tables that went with the old beds stayed. This poses a problem in that they are over a foot too narrow, so your lamp, etc. is now quite a reach if you are trying to get to it while standing on the floor. Additionally, the esthetics of bedspreads that are crib-sized on queen-sized beds leaves a bit to be desired. Better than the first time they unleashed the first queen-sized bed but had failed to buy any proper-sized sheets. I heard that was really hard to deal with. Ah, so much changes and yet stays the same!!

Atop the Cinder Pile, we continue to change things. I am sure you will find this all exasperating and enjoyable at the same time. First, we welcome our two new PDRA/TSSs, Olga Kuhn and Watson Varricatt. Tim Carroll and I are more than happy to see them installed, as we kind of worked our butts off last year. The control room remains a Work in Progress. This is sad; I had hoped this would be over with by now, but we are rather short-staffed and we do have other priorities. We still await some cabinetry, and I am beginning to really yearn to rationalize the corkboards. Stuff is just stuck on top of each other now. Further, we have yet to begin to put up our Pretty Pictures--of which we have some rather astounding ones. If you don't believe me, just take a gander at our Image Gallery on our web pages (http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/public/gallery.html).

We are planning the Big Bang very soon, when ORAC will run the instruments and the telscope will be controlled with the new telescope control system (TCS). All will be foisted on the World at the same time. I have a feeling that observers who will then have to show up with their entire observing plan (down to guide stars) will experience some growing pains over this. To whit: thus far, not one soul that I have asked has been able to guess correctly what the dog icon stands for in the Gemini Observing Tool. Like anything new, we have to expect these sorts of things. I am sure you visitors will get many laughs out of me as I try to cope with the new TCS and going through my usual colorful antics over it. Change for the better does not necessarily mean no pain.

The Observatory's suite of instruments continue to pour forth great data (again, see the image gallery!). We have lots of happy astronomers leaving HP at the ends of their runs. (In many ways, as I am sure they are happy to be leaving HP as well). Anticipating, anticipating MICHELLE, but we won't go into that. UKIRT continues to produce images as good as/better than Hubble (I shall leave someone else to argue which). I keep trying to calculate how many UKIRTs could have been built for that money...how many decades UKIRT could run, but it is just too mind-boggling. It really is not the money (or rather lack of it) that drives this place to such heights though; it is the team of simply fabulous people that have come together to do this. I cannot tell you how honored I am to be amongst them!

Aloha!

People

Arrivals

UKIRT has two new Research Associate/Telescope System Specialists, Olga Kuhn and Watson Varricattu, who we warmly welcome to Hilo and the JAC.

Olga brings with her experience of telescope operations and support at the Mexican National Observatory at San Pedro Martir, near Ensenada, where she worked for two and a half years. Olga's research interests focus on quasars and AGN -- in particular their central engines and evolution, which she has been studying by examining the optical/UV continua of high redshift (z>3) quasars via infrared spectroscopic and photometric observations.

Watson arrives from the Physical Research Laboratory, at Ahmedabad, India. His PhD there was based on photometric studies of close binary systems, including the measurement at near-IR wavelengths of the light curves of Algol binary stars. His current research is associated with near-IR spectroscopic and photometric studies of Wolf-Rayet stars and eclipsing binary stars.

The UKIRT Software Engineering group also received a boost last September when Russell Kackley joined the team. Russell had previously been with the JAC as a summer student from the University of Hawaii. Russell was a Mechanical Engineer Specialist with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in California for a number of years before moving to Hawaii.

Departures

Stuart Ryder departed Hilo for the Anglo-Australian Observatory (Epping) last October. He is now the instrument scientist for the University College London Echelle Spectrograph (UCLES), and will be the commissioning scientist for IRIS-2, the AAO's new infrared imager/spectrograph. Stuart will certainly be missed on soccer pitches and golf courses across the Hawaiian state, as well as at UKIRT! We wish him good fortune in his new job.