OIRAC Report May, 97 This has been an active six months for Canadian Optical and Infra-Red Astronomy. The Gemini telescopes remain on schedule, the CFHT SAC has been very busy monitoring new instruments and looking ahead. The NSERC reallocation exercise is in full swing with the possibility of substantial changes in funding for OIR astronomy. Although not part of the remit of this committee, the JSSA and CSA are both exploring the possibility of involvement in some large space projects, including the Next Generation Space Telescope (which does match the waveband of this committee and must be considered when planning for the (distant) future of ground based astronomy). Also big changes seem likely in the operation of several Canadian small telescopes. At the end of this report, we also consider the function of this committee, and suggest some changes in how it is run. Gemini (provided by Tim Davidge--Canadian Project Astronomer) _____________________________________________________________ The International Project Office is actively pursuing adding Australia as a new partner to make up for the funding shortfall caused by Chile's defaulting on its contributions. Even should this happen, Chile will still have 10% of the time on Gemini South, and representation on many of the Gemini Committees. Site Status: Construction work continues on Mauna Kea, with the erection of the moving part of the dome. This work is scheduled to be completed by the middle of this year, at which point construction of the telescope structure will commence. Work on the movable part of the Cerro Pachon dome will not start until the Mauna Kea structure is completed. Construction will also start later this year on the Gemini base facility in Hilo. Telescope and Optics: All components for the Mauna Kea telescope have been fabricated, and the entire structure was erected on the factory floor to test the telescope control system. The telescope is being disassembled for shipment to Hawaii. Fabrication of the components for the Cerro Pachon telescope is underway. The primary mirror for the Mauna Kea telescope is being polished at REOSC, while the primary mirror for the Cerro Pachon facility is being prepared for polishing. A problem has been encountered in fabricating a light-weight Silicon Carbide secondary mirror. The vendor has made three attempts to construct a blank, and failed on each occasion. In order to prevent a delay in operational handover, the Mauna Kea telescope will be commissioned with a glass secondary mirror. This will have a small impact on delivered image quality, and strategies for obtaining a light weight secondary mirror for operations are being investigated. Instrumentation: NIRI and GMOS have both successfully completed critical design reviews, and components for each are being fabricated. NIRS will have a critical design review this fall. HROS and MIRI will undergo preliminary design reviews later this year. GAOS is preparing for it's preliminary design review. A number of issues concerning the optical design remain unresolved as of this writing. Presentations on the Canadian work on GMOS and GAOS will be made at the CASCA meeting. CFHT (see CFHT SAC report for details) ______________________________________ Below are some edited highlights from the CFHT SAC report. The full report should be consulted for details, and should be available on the web by the time of the CASCA meeting. AOB: This continues to work well. The KIR 1k IR camera is expected to be delivered in June to CFHT, greatly expanding the science possible with AOB. OASIS (a spectrograph with integral field capability which can work with AOB) has passed two sets of acceptance tests in Lyon, prior to delivery to CFHT as a guest instrument (expected in the fall of 97). MOS/OSIS: New high dispersion IR grisms for OSIS have been delivered. A contract to build a 1k IR camera for OSIS is being negotiated with the University of Montreal. Wide field imaging: The UH 8k camera is working well. The planned upgrade to a 12k array with thinned CCDs is underway, with very promising performance from initial testing of the Lincoln Labs CCDs (less than 1e- read noise!). The Megacam project, with a new prime focus top end, and a 16k array is also in the pipeline, with a goal of being on the sky in mid 2000. A workshop exploring the science to be done with Megacam was held in May at the University of Toronto. A number of CFHT SAC resolutions concerning the Megacam design based on this meeting have been drafted, including that (a) UV (less than 3600 A) throughput is very important, and (b) an ADC is not essential. The long term future of the CFHT site is being considered by a SAC sub-committee chaired by David Hanes. An engineering report has been delivered by W. Grundmann detailing what could be fitted into the current telescope pier. This suggests that a 12m segmented primary would fit, but larger diameter primaries might be difficult. Considerably more work needs to be done on mapping out scientific goals and priorities for any such upgrade. CADC (David Schade) ___________________ New instrumentation on Hubble Space Telescope (the NICMOS infrared imager and STIS spectrograph) has required extensive software modifications and updates to deal with increased data flow and maintain compatibility with archive changes at STScI. Early-Release observations from the new instruments are now available. A science-level archive of the Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology (CNOC) cluster survey has been developed and is ready to be released for evaluation and testing by CNOC members. This compilation will provide all of the project data along with all quantities derived from those data (photometry,spectroscopic indices, morphological measurements) in a form suitable for immediate analysis. Progress continues toward completion of the Gemini Data Handling System. Preliminary design review took place in September, a Beta version of the DHS Core track was delivered in early May, and both the Data Server track and Quick-Look track will have been delivered by early June. CADC is preparing an initial requirements document for the Gemini telescopes internal archive. Development has begun on software for pipeline processing, image analysis, and catalogue generation for CFH12K and MEGACAM wide-field imaging. HIA Advisory Committee (Eduardo Hardy) ______________________________________ HIA has set up a new Advisory Committee composed of members of the astronomical community, whose functions are: 1. To advise the Director General and, where appropriate, the NRC Executive on the management and overall priorities of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. 2. To provide an effective mechanism for the participation of the community in setting priorities and directions for the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. 3. To review strategic plans for the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics and its programs. 4. To review the organizational structure of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics and to provide comments. 5. To conduct a yearly assessment of the overall performance of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. 6. To conduct site visits and provide comments. This committee operates as follows: 1. The Committee should normally meet once a year. 2. The Chair of the HIA Advisory Committee will prepare a report on behalf of the Committee to be attached to the Annual Report prepared by the Director General. The committee met for the first time at DAO on December 16 and 17, 1996. DAO Telescopes (Jim Hesser and Simon Morris) ____________________________________________ Because of the cutbacks in funding to NRC, support for the Victoria telescopes has had to be substantially reduced. Discussions are ongoing about how to maximise the scientific productivity of these telescopes in this situation. A detailed presentation on this subject will be given by J. Hesser at the CASCA meeting, but initial feedback supports some combination of (a) reducing the number of instrument changes by selecting the instrumentation to match highest scientifically ranked proposals for each semester, and (b) dedicating large amounts of time to one or two major projects. The University of Toronto Southern Observatory (paraphrased from Bob Garrison) ______________________________________________________________________________ The UTSO is scheduled to close on 30 June 1997 unless a substantial amount of `seed money' can be found, along with an agreement by users to pay user fees. This situation is described in more detail in two mailings to the CASCA exploder recently. Anyone needing copies of these should contact R. Garrison directly.