THE UNITED KINGDOM INFRARED TELESCOPE
ANNUAL REPORT
2001-2002

6. Longer-Term Plans

6.1. WFCAM Operations and the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey

Besides normal PATT-sponsored programmes, the UKIRT wide-field camera (WFCAM) is expected to spend a large amount of time on a major, public, infrared sky survey. This programme - comprising a heirarchical set of surveys of differing areas and depths - is being defined by the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) consortium. The period from 2001 to 2002 was a crucial one in the development of the surveys. Organizationally, the biggest single advance was the appointment in late-2001 of Dr. Steve Warren to the position of UKIDSS Survey Scientist. Dr. Warren's work since that time has centred on coordinating the production of the survey proposals, short-term planning and giving input to the pipeline and archive teams in Cambridge and Edinburgh.

Before this appointment, the consortium had produced the second evolution of the survey proposal, which was put to an external panel in Spring 2001. The UKIRT Board meeting of May 2001 considered both the proposal and the panel report. This meeting set an approximate fraction of UKIRT time to be devoted to WFCAM work (around 60%), and accepted the "legacy" components in the UKIDSS proposal (the Large-Area Survey, Galactic Plane Survey, and Galactic Cluster Survey). The consortium was asked to produce revised plans for the deeper elements (the Deep Extragalactic Survey and Ultradeep Survey), for separate panel review in advance of the second Board meeting of 2001. This second panel's report was supportive of the deeper components' science aims but was concerned that the UKIDSS survey as a whole should not be allowed to squeeze out work by other survey teams. The November 2001 Board accepted the revised plan, and approved an operations plan produced jointly by the JAC and UKIDSS consortium.

Late 2001 saw negotiations over the possible involvement of ESO in the WFCAM surveys, and ESO access to the resulting datasets. The final outcome of these negotiations was that the ESO community would gain access to the reduced WFCAM data in the same way as the UK community, and a copy of the raw data would be made available to ESO for archiving. ESO scientists became involved in UKIDSS meetings, and some adjustments to field centres and priorities resulted.

In 2002, UKIDSS work centred on the production of an initial two-year plan, requested by the winter 2001 Board; this included an intense period of discussion within the Deep Extragalactic Survey group as to which of the many well-studied fields available would be included in the survey. The two-year plan was accepted by the UKIRT Board in November 2002; scheduling issues were left to the observatory and the UKIDSS Survey Scientist.

6.2. AO and the OHANA Project

The Optical Hawaiian Array for Nanoradian Astronomy project (OHANA, a Hawaiian word meaning family) aims to link together the optical/infrared telescopes on Mauna Kea to produce a world-leading interferometer with unsurpassed resolution. By early 2001, the project had three identifiable phases: phase I was the production and testing of a flexible "injector module" which would be used to inject the adaptive optics (AO) corrected signal from each telescope into a fibre optic cable; phase II was the first interferometric test over a relatively short baseline such as that between CFHT and Gemini, and phase III was full interferometry between an array of telescopes. The project was naturally keen to incorporate UKIRT, since its position on the south end of the summit ridge would give the array a long north-south baseline. Funding for OHANA from the French government was approved through to phase II in 2001. The science case became public in October 2001.

Initial contact with C. Dainty at Imperial College (ICSTM) suggested that the required AO system could be relatively cheaply built and installed on UKIRT, which since the departure of Hokupa'a to Gemini has been without AO. An exchange of engineering details, and a visit in August 2001 by C. Paterson from ICSTM, showed that the convenient location of UKIRT's cassegrain focus, and the availability of the IRCAM platform after the arrival of UIST, made the installation of any off-the-shelf AO system relatively straightforward. The May 2001 UKIRT Board meeting was presented with a proposal to carry out the required work at ICSTM and to allow for the later incorporation of UKIRT into OHANA. The Board suggested that the proposal should go through the grants line, but supported the August visit of ICSTM personnel.

By the end of 2001, phase I was coming to an end with the successful production of the first injection module and a fast infrared camera, and phase II was under way. The November Board meeting supported the proposal that UKIRT should be involved, defining OHANA as effectively a "visiting instrument". Contact with ICSTM continued through the year, though at a reduced level; in August 2002 C. Dainty left ICSTM, but the group remained keen to be involved in this novel use of off-the-shelf AO.

6.3. Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy

The Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) programme is a European Union (EU) research infrastructure network funded from 2000 to 2004 as part of the EU 5th framework programme. In its submission for continued funding in the sixth framework programme (EU FP6, from 2004) it has proposed funding access to medium-sized telescopes via travel grants and operations funding. The broad goal of this provision is to achieve Europe-wide coordination in ground-based optical/infrared observational astronomy facilities. An advanced draft of the OPTICON proposal to EU FP6 was worked on at a meeting in Toulouse in September 2001, at which UKIRT was represented. The November 2002 Board meeting reviewed UKIRT's participation in the OPTICON telescope network of medium-sized telescopes and agreed that the terms were acceptable; UKIRT was formally asked to make a submission to OPTICON by PPARC in December 2002. This submission was made in early 2003. The proposal was submitted to the EU in April 2003 and the results are expected in late summer 2003.