GLIMPSE Teleconference Minutes of 13 April 2001

Team Present:  Churchwell, Mathis, Watson, Hoffman, Babler, Meade, Whitney

By Telecon:  Wolfire, Wolff, Stolovy, Jackson, Bania, Clemens


Position Angle Predictor
------------------------
Susan talked about a JPL program called "percy" which calculates
the SIRTF PA for a given coordinate.  One takes galactic coordinates,
converts them to RA & Dec which is then input to percy, and the SIRTF 
PA is the output.  Christer would like a tool which would predict
the PA to within 1 degree. Now it can be predicted to about 5 degrees.
Christer would like percy to be run for every day, every degree
(keeping the gal lat = 0). He is worried about gaps in our survey 
and double coverage.  He & Susan will look into automating the 
input to percy. 

Database Software
-----------------
Mike reported on the database development. Test data were delivered
to the Milwaukee group and a prototype of the GLIMPSE database was created.
It will be ported to shapley and we will then have a production version
and a development version of the database.
OPUS (the pipeline software) has been installed on shapley.
It's an older version (v2.4)...a new version (v3.2) is in work.
See http://www.astro.wisc.edu/sirtf/Team/Processing/progress-apr13.html
for more info.

Data Products Working Group Questions
-------------------------------------
Susan answered some of the Data Products Working Group questions.

   (1) Can we have immediate access to the First-Look Data for
         software testing purposes?

Susan: will get access to SIRTF data after SSC quality control. The First Look Data
will be taken the 2nd & 3rd month after launch. They are now working on real test
data from Ball.  The data are owned by the instrument teams until launch.

   (2) Can we have access to simulated data? That is data with
         reasonable images that comes out of the same pipeline
         that will reduce SIRTF data. If so, when?

Susan:  will check into getting a list of the current, not final FITS keywords.
No positional info yet in the keywords.

   (3) Can we have a clear definition of the level of pipeline
         processing to be done by the SSC? What will be included
         in the BCD and BQD? What can we count on for our starting point?

Susan: There are pipeline processing requirements documents.

   (4) Will the SSC make their pipeline CODE available to us? We
         would like to be able to build on their efforts.

Susan: some parts may be made available.  SSC will release mosaic software.
It will take account of distortions. Stu Hemple (spelling?) is writing
the mosaicer for IRAC.

   (5) What are the proposed database capabilities that the SSC
         will support? Will data from other project (2MASS etc) be
         linked in automatically? Will there be full relational database
         capabilities? Will they support a wide range of ancillary data?

Susan:  Data from 2MASS will *not* be linked to the SIRTF data.
Need to go to IRSA for that.  SSC intends to link all our data with the
IRSA catalogs.
It is an object related database. Technically can
export data as tables but it's a policy issue.  Whenever do a query to
their database, a table gets assembled.  Tom Hanlon (spelling?) is in charge of
the database.

   (6) What is the expection for deliverable software? Is there
         a preferred environment? Is there a code standard or guideline?
        Should programs be stand-alone?

Susan: The programming is being done in c++.  Since we are not promising to 
deliver software, it's not an issue for us.

Post-Pipeline
-------------
Barb went over the progress we've made on our post-pipeline processing.
See 
   http://www.astro.wisc.edu/sirtf/Team/Processing/progress-apr13.html
for a summary of what's been accomplished since February. We went over the
post-pipeline flowchart in detail.
   http://www.astro.wisc.edu/sirtf/Team/Processing/flowchart2.pdf.
We will update the flowchart to include comments from the team.
Test data have been created to help us develop the post-pipeline modules
and to be moved around in the database.  WFPC2 data of R136 was used 
for the test images.  A set of BCD-like data were created for each of the 4 IRAC 
bands for 2 visits. The second visit images are shifted and rotated slightly from the 
first visit data.  See 
   http://www.astro.wisc.edu/sirtf/Team/Processing/TestData/testdata.html
for a detailed description of the test image data set.
A program STINY (SIRTF TinyTim) is being written by John Krist which produces IRAC PSF's.
It is a modification of HST's TinyTim data simulator.  It would be useful to 
simulate some IRAC data using this program.

Zodiacal Light Model
--------------------
Mark talked about his latest zodi models.  See 
  http://www.astro.wisc.edu/sirtf/Team/Processing/Zodi/zodi.html
He compared his zodi model to SPOT and found there was an error in SPOT!
He explored zodi variation with time and didn't see large variations.
We won't have to worry about spikes. 
He also explored variations in zodi with position and found that the variation
across the IRAC field of view is insignificant.


Personnel & Budget
------------------
We are flat funded for the second 6 months (July-December 2001) according
to Michael Bicay.  The new date the revised cost plan is due is May 23.
Send budget info to Ed.
So far there have been 2 people who have applied for the post doc position
and another 2 people who have expressed interest. Ed suggested that we might
want to change the emphasis of the PDF position to science, as opposed to working
on the post-processing pipeline, and delay the start time of the PDF to next year.

Extended Abstract
-----------------
The extended abstract revised by Ed & Jim is posted on the GLIMPSE team web site.
Please send your comments to Ed.

Summer Meeting of the Team
--------------------------
We decided on June 28th and June 29th, 2001 (Thursday & Friday) for a team meeting in Madison.


Next telecon:  Tuesday April 24th, 11 am. CDT.   608-265-1000 #4112

to Minutes index page