Minutes of April 24, 2001, 11:00 CDT

Present: Babler, Bania, Benjamin, Churchwell, Hoffman, Kobulnicky,
Mathis, Stolovy, Watson, Wolff, Wolfire


I. Churchwell: visit to SSC last week. Summary: a very successful
visit!

   1. The budget profile is clear for the next 3 years. It will be:
        (a) next 6 months, '01: $186k (making $372K for year 1)
	(b) Year 2: $605k
	(c) Year 3: $770k
	(d) Year 4: $673k
	(e) Year 5: was not indicated in the call for proposals, so it
	was not applied for, but some $$ will likely be forthcoming
	for ramping down the project.

   2. The people at SSC are very happy to help us.

   3. Barb Whitney had a question for SSC: will the source code for
   the mosaicer be available to us? The source extractor? Answers:
   The good news: Yes, no problem! The bad news: this code does not
   exist at present, and does not have high priority.

   4. EBC talked with Reach, Soifer, Bicay, Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, and
   Debra Levine and discovered a possible MAJOR problem for us: there is
   a 3 minute overhead for each AOR that is embedded deeply within the
   SPOT and other software. It is not appropriate for our AORs that
   tile the sky with only small slews needed. If implemented, it will
   mean that we will be unable to cover the area we promised, by tens
   of percent. It is most unlikely that we can be allotted extra time
   to compensate, even though everyone will know that we will in fact
   not need that much overhead time. The obvious suggestion - that the
   overhead be exacted only once per **chained** AOR - was not popular
   with the SSC staff because they worry about the precedent that it
   would set. They are well aware of the problem and will discuss it.
   Both Tony M. and Susan S. should be present at these discussions.

   The SSC staff had suggestions about how we can change our AORs, but
   EBC told them that we had considered the most efficient procedure
   carefully and issued a gentle challenge that they try to improve on
   our procedure.

   No one at SSC with whom Ed talked had looked at our AORs submitted
   April 6. The SSC staff is very, very busy.

II. Susan asked if the group would like synthetic Point Spread Fcns.
that she has generated. She has already sent them to Barb W. Wolfire
said he would like them too. Susan suggested that the PSFs might be a
bit optimistic about the real performance of the system.

III. The EPO (Churchwell): The proposal that we use some EPO $$ to
join the StarDate consortium, suggested by an email from Neal Evans to
EBC (circulated earlier) was discussed. The Kennicutt legacy team
(UofA) had already declined it. The proposal is for 8 two-minute
radio programs on the series, each of which might have about half of
the time devoted to legacy projects. The general feeling is that the
EPO budget should go to local programs, such as (a) maintaining a Web
page person; (b) the UW Universe in the Park (visits to state parks,
with a portable telescope; perhaps buy an infrared camera with the
funds); (c) the UW Space Place program, a popular meeting place for
astronomy talks and programs for all ages, and (d) funds for the SIRTF
Speakers' Bureau. Probably the StarDate program will cover SIRTF news
anyway.

IV. Logo: Some suggestions that had been made will be implemented. There
was general feeling that the present version should be final. T shirts
for the next meeting?

V. Assistant Scientist position (Jennifer Hoffman was excused
because she is an applicant herself): EBC gave summaries of the CVs of 6
applicants. He will appoint a subcommittee to narrow the search after
the deadline for applications (May 15).

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