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Cassiopeia Newsletter – Autumnal Equinox 2024

Updated: Aug 21, 2025

Date: September 21, 2024


In this Issue:

A Message from the Editor

Canadian Gemini Office News

Update on CASTOR

ngVLA Update

CCAT Update

CFHT News and Updates

ALMA Matters



Editor: Dennis Crabtree

Cassiopeia is CASCA’s quarterly Newsletter, published on or near the solstices and equinoxes (March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21).


To submit a contribution please email cassiopeia.editors@gmail.com. All submissions must be received by the specified due date to be published in the next edition. I accept plain text and Word documents. Note that the formatting of your document will not be preserved. Please include any images as attachments in your email, not embedded in the text. Please include URLs in parentheses next to the word or phrase that you wish to act as link anchors.

From the Editor


I look forward to serving as the editor of E-Cass for the next two years. Many thanks to Joanne Rosvick for serving as editor/co-editor for many years.


I am old enough to have received the quarterly print edition of our Society’s newsletter, Cassiopeia, for many years. For those interested,  the paper issues of Cassiopeia, from 1973 to 1997 have been scanned and serve as a captivating record of CASCA’s activities. It seems the 1st issue of Cassiopeia hasn’t been scanned. Please let me know if you have a copy of this issue, as I would like to add it to our online archive. The 2nd edition had articles on the proposed Franco-Canadian Telescope, known today as the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT).

If you would like to see any changes to E-Cass, please send me your suggestions. I want to ensure that E-Cass remains relevant to our community and serves as a record of our activities.


Canadian Gemini News


By Eric Steinbring (Canadian Gemini Office, National Research Council Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics)


Gemini North Celebrates 25 Years


The Gemini North telescope began operations back in 1999, showing off its shiny first-light photos at a dedication ceremony on Maunakea, Hawai`i later that year. It was the newest of the world-class 8-m telescopes at the time, especially well infrared optimized – including, for example, the use of protected-silver instead of usual aluminum-coated optics – and capable of among the best-possible imaging obtainable from the ground. Together with Altair, the Canadian-built facility adaptive optics (AO) system, it went on to famously capture the first direct image of a multi-planet system using NIRI (the Near-Infrared Imager) led by Christian Marois. Its superb image quality also helped test Einstein’s general theory of relativity by observing stars in the Galactic centre with NIFS (Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph), which contributed to the awarding of a Nobel Prize in 2020. Although both NIRI and NIFS are decommissioned, two new IFUs since added within GNIRS (Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph) cover similar low- and high-spatial resolution modes, and replace that utility. And still to come are GPI 2.0 (Gemini Planet Imager 2.0) for high-contrast AO imaging, as well as an updated, next-generation facility AO system to feed GIRMOS (Gemini InfraRed Multi-Object Spectrograph), another pan-Canadian-built addition to the North.


And You Get the Presents: IGRINS-2 is Now Available!


The Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph 2 (IGRINS-2) has been commissioned on Gemini North. This is a high-resolution (R~45,000) near-infrared spectrograph which can cover essentially the whole wavelength range from about 1.5 to 2.5 microns in a single exposure. That amazing feat is made possible due to its efficiently designed silicon immersion grating optical system. Now a facility instrument, it underwent a successful System Verification phase in July, demonstrating end-to-end software and operational procedures, and allowing it be offered for the first time in semester 2025A on a shared-risk basis. The processed data from this observing program, including e.g. high-resolution spectroscopy of possible exoplanet atmospheres and searches for metal poor stars, are being made publicly available in order to show IGRINS-2 capabilities to potential users (see: https://www.gemini.edu/instrumentation/igrins-2). Those should be familiar to some: it is a near-clone of IGRINS, which was a Visiting Instrument on Gemini South for several years and proved very popular, sometimes comparably so to GMOS-N and -S (Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs), which are perennially the favourite, workhorse Gemini instruments – both North and South.


Reminder: The Regular-Semester 2025A Call for Proposals (https://nrc.canada.ca/en/research-development/products-services/technical-advisory-services/gemini-canadian-specific-information-phase-i) deadline is Tuesday 1 October at 4 PM PDT (7 PM EDT). Note that some other partners differ, e.g. the United States 2025A deadline is the day before. That is also true for the usual monthly Fast Turnaround Call for smaller proposals, at noon Hawai`i time on Monday 30 September, which is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation here in Canada.

CASTOR Update


By John Hutchings, Patrick Côté (NRC-Herzberg)


CASTOR is ready — scientifically, technically and programmatically — for a formal request for approval. Lobbying by the Coalition (CASCA, ACURA, and Industry) remains underway, with meeting planned for the upcoming parliamentary session. Support from key Universities and a letter from the principal Canadian contractor companies will be part of the push. The immediate, urgent need is for a mission-defining Phase A study that would include formal agreements with international partners who await this pivotal next step.An NRC Small teams program is now underway. This three-year project will prototype the UVMOS instrument and raise the technology readiness level of several critical elements. This program has technology development implications for both CASTOR and NASA’s upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory. Partners include the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, the University of Colorado (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics), and the University of Calgary.


A meeting of Canadian and international CASTOR partners will be held in Victoria in November. This three-day meeting will focus on a wide range of technology development programs, including optics, coatings detectors, electronics, and data flows.


A delegation from the UK Space Agency is planning a second Canadian visit to discuss collaborations on CASTOR. This time, representative from NRC will be involved.


The CASTOR mission was presented in several talks and posters at the SPIE and COSPAR meetings. During the COSPAR meeting, which was held in Busan, South Korea, informal partnership ideas were discussed with KASA/KASI representatives. The newly formed Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) is in the process of defining its interests and priorities.


Detector testing progress continues at University of Calgary UV facility and HAA, in collaboration with Teledyne, UK Open University, and JPL, and CSA. Results will be coming in over the next few months that will quantify the QE doping and noise for the flight arrays. Radiation tests will follow.


Co-op students continue work on data simulation and science planning tools for CASTOR. Discussions are under way to develop optical ground-stations in Manitoba and northern Canada (Inuvik).


CASCA has recently announced plans for the 2025 Mid-Term Review. With approval now secured for both the TMT and SKA projects, the status of space astronomy in Canada, in general, and CASTOR in particular, will likely be a major focus of this important review.


For more information on the mission, see https://www.castormission.org

ngVLA Update


Erik Rosolowsky (U Alberta), Joan Wrobel (NRAO)



NSF Conceptual Design Review


After a four day review in early September in Washington, DC, the ngVLA (https://ngvla.nrao.edu) project successfully passed its Conceptual Design review. The project sends it thanks to its numerous colleagues worldwide, including in Canada, who contributed their time and talent to help propel the ngVLA past this important milestone. The ngVLA project will now be considered by the US National Science Foundation for entry to the next phase – Preliminary Design – to further advance the project’s definition and execution plan. A press release is forthcoming.


Key Science Goals for the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA): Update from the ngVLA Science Advisory Council (2024)


In 2017, the next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) Science Advisory Council (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/sciencecouncil), together with the international astronomy community, developed a set of five Key Science Goals (KSGs) to inform, prioritize and refine the technical capabilities of a future radio telescope array for high angular resolution operation from 1.2 – 116 GHz with 10 times the sensitivity of the Jansky VLA and ALMA. The resulting KSGs, which require observations at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths that cannot be achieved by any other facility, represent a small subset of the broad range of astrophysical problems that the ngVLA will be able to address.


This document (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024arXiv240814497W/abstract) presents an update to the original ngVLA KSGs, taking account of new results and progress in the 7+ years since their initial presentation, again drawing on the expertise of the ngVLA Science Advisory Council (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/sciencecouncil) and the broader community in the ngVLA Science Working Groups (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/workinggroups). As the design of the ngVLA has also matured substantially in this period, this document also briefly addresses initial expectations for ngVLA data products and processing that will be needed to achieve the KSGs.


The original ngVLA KSGs endure as outstanding problems of high priority. In brief, they are: (1) Unveiling the Formation of Solar System Analogues; (2) Probing the Initial Conditions for Planetary Systems and Life with Astrochemistry; (3) Charting the Assembly, Structure, and Evolution of Galaxies from the First Billion Years to the Present; (4) Science at the Extremes: Pulsars as Laboratories for Fundamental Physics; (5) Understanding the Formation and Evolution of Stellar and Supermassive Black Holes in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy. Importantly, the ngVLA KSGs are part of the wider science applications that are discussed in the ngVLA Science Working Groups (https://ngvla.nrao.edu/page/workinggroups).


Follow the Monarchs to Old Mexico


The conference on “Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA” will be held November 11-14 in person in Morelia, Mexico. The conference coincides with the Monarch butterflies completing their migration journey from Canada and the US to the historic Morelia area. A program of 67 talks has been announced (http://go.nrao.edu/ngvla24). The deadline for cost-saving registration and poster abstract submission is October 1. To take action, see the conference website (http://go.nrao.edu/ngvla24).


IAU Focus Meeting in South Africa


The focus meeting on “A Coherent View of Atomic and Molecular Gas from Infrared to Radio Wavelengths” was held August 6-7 in person in Cape Town, South Africa. The program (https://iaugas2024.astro.umd.edu/index.html) of 36 talks and 81 posters explored how work informed by existing facilities is shaping our understanding of the interstellar medium in the Milky Way and external galaxies, and how this work is re-framing the science to be addressed by the remarkable capabilities of future radio observatories. To broaden information sharing, presentations may be viewed for days 1 (https://astronomy2024.org/day-1-august-6/) and 2 (https://astronomy2024.org/day-2-august-7/), and proceedings will be published soon (https://astronomy2024.org/conference-proceedings/).

CCAT Update


By Mike Fich (Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics) and Norm Murray (Canadian Institutefor Theoretical Astrophysics)


The CCAT team is pleased to announce that a major milestone has been reached in this project:the fabrication of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) has recently been completedat Vertex Antennenentechnik GmBH. FYST is now being prepared for shipment (after partialdisassembly) to the CCAT Observatory site in Chile and it should leave the factory by the end ofNovember 2024. Final assembly of the telescope will begin in April 2025 and telescopecommissioning will follow in August 2025. First light instruments (a broad-band camera and aheterodyne spectrometer) will be installed starting in February 2026.


FYST is a 6-meter diameter submillimeter survey telescope and will be located at the bestsubmillimeter site that has been identified anywhere in the world. The CCAT partnership is ledby Cornell University with German, Canadian, and Chilean partners. The Canadian participationis channeled through the Canadian Atacama Telescope Consortium (CATC) and includesresearchers at ten Canadian universities. The central camera module for FYST – a 350 micron50,000 pixel device – is under development by a multi-institutional team led by Scott Chapmanat UBC. This camera will be the crowning jewel of FYST! Much more detail on the project isavailable at the website https://www.ccatobservatory.org.


The CCAT team has been actively planning the science activities for FYST for several years andthe plans are now in a quite mature state. All of the observing time with FYST will be used inlarge surveys. Eight Key Projects have been identified. Four of these Key Projects haveCanadian leadership.


The CCAT team is very much open to new members! If you have an interest in participating inthe technology development or in any of the Key Projects please contact either of the authorsof this note or a Key Project leader (listed on the website above).

CFHT News and Updates


By Nadine Manset (Director of Science Operations, on behalf of the CFHT ‘ohana)

Last month


August 11th, was the 45th anniversary of CFHT’s first light. CFHT’s first exposurewas a two-minute image of Messier 13 taken with a 35mm film camera installed at the primefocus, just in time for the 1979 General Assembly of the IAU in Montreal. The secondphotograph below shows then Director Roger Cayrel inspecting the film. The following month,on September 28th, 1979, the telescope was dedicated.



This month


CFHT issued a Call for Ideas for CFHT community surveys available here (https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/SciSurvey/) We are initiating the process to design, implement, and carry out an ambitious scientific community-led survey that could be started as early as 2027 and last up to 5 years. This legacy survey will follow the next round of CFHT Large Programs that will be executed in 2025 and 2026. We are calling for letters of ideas for broad scientific themes or more specific proposalsfor this community-led survey.


The intent is to design a survey (or surveys) that will be carried out with MegaCam and/or Wenaokeao (co-mount of ESPaDOnS and SPIRou), serve the widest possible community of CFHT users, and have a significant scientific impact and/or legacy value. The final survey will be designed by members of the CFHT community and may combine 2 or more proposals or scientific themes.

Interested individuals and teams may submit their letters by November 15, 2024, by e-mail todirector@cfht.hawaii.edu. Questions can be directed to manset@cfht.hawaii.edu.


Soon


The official selection of the next Large Programs (https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/CallLP25A/) will be announced in October or November. The LPTAC met in early September to discuss and rank all submissions. The final decision will rest in the hands of the CFHT Board of Directors.

The virtual MSE Collaboration Workshop “Re-envisioning the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer within the Future of Large-scale Survey Spectroscopic Facilities” will be held in October and November. The meeting will have 4 sessions each week, on the days of October 29–31 and November 6–8, 2024. Additional details and a link to the registration are available here (https://mse.cfht.hawaii.edu/?page_id=3879) . The registration deadline is September 27.


Next year

Mark your calendar! The 2025 CFHT Users’ Meeting will be held May 26-27-28 at the beautifulAuberge du Lac-à-l’Eau-Claire resort, in Québec. Stay tuned for additional information.


ALMA Matters


By Gerald Schieven and Brenda Matthews


ALMA Data Processing/Analysis Workshops for Cycle 11


The North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC) and the Cycle 11 ALMA Ambassadors have organized a series of workshops on the processing and analysis of ALMA data. These workshops will take place in September-November 2024. The goal of these events is to train users on basic data processing and analysis techniques that they may need to use ALMA for scientific discovery. Topics may include:


  • Imaging/cleaning of continuum and spectral line observations

  • Self-calibration

  • Imaging of data from multiple array configurations

  • Using the Pipeline Weblog and Re-running the Imaging Pipeline

  • Using CARTA for Image Visualization and Analysis

  • Science-ready Data Products

  • What’s New in CASA (Common Astronomy Software Applications)

  • The ALMA Press Release Process 


Information on the locations and dates for these workshops is available on the NAASC Community Events webpage (https://science.nrao.edu/facilities/alma/community/) and in the table below. Early registration is encouraged, to facilitate tailoring the workshops to the interests of the attendees.  Two of the events are being hosted in Canada, by Jess Speedie at University of Victoria (22 October 2024), and by Hamid Hassani at University of Alberta (24 October), though many of the events will be hybrid in-person/virtual and all are welcome to register for any event.  Check the Community Events page for registration information.

ALMA Achieves New Milestone:  Record-breaking Observing Hours during a Single Cycle at ALMA


As of 6 September, ALMA reached 3,810 hours of successful scientific observations (QA0 pass hours) in Cycle 10, exceeding the previous record of 3,787 hours achieved in Cycle 5.  While there are many ways to measure the success of the ALMA observatory, observing as many of the outstanding proposals selected as possible is vital to fulfilling its mission.  This remarkable milestone is a testament to the dedication, collaboration, and contributions from all departments and regions across ALMA.  With Cycle 10 continuing until 30 September, ALMA’s goal of exceeding 4000 hours of QA0 Pass time is well within reach.  Hearty congratulations to JAO and the ARCs and to all who contributed to this milestone.


ALMA Primer Instructional Video Series


The ALMA Primer Instructional Video series, which can be found on the Science Portal (https://almascience.org/tools/alma-primer-videos), is designed to provide a basic introduction to radio interferometry, calibration, imaging, and other topics in short (5-10 minute), easy-to-digest segments. As a work in progress, new videos are released periodically. This summer the Herzberg Millimetre Astronomy Group hired two co-op students, Lauren Harrison (University of Victoria) and Natalie Perelygin (Camosun College) to create four new videos:


Other videos in the series include an Introduction to Radio Interferometry, Calibration, CLEAN, and much more. Subscribe to the ALMA Primer Video Series YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@almaprimer920) to be alerted to new videos as they are released.  The full, categorized list of videos with descriptions can be found on the ALMA Science Portal at https://almascience.org/tools/alma-primer-videos.


We are always looking for ideas for new videos, and especially looking for people who would like to help with script generation, animation, and narration. If you have an idea or would like to join the Primer Video Working Group (at any level of effort), please contact gerald.schieven@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.

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