Minutes for Telecon for Nov 20, 2002

Present: Churchwell, Benjamin, Meade, Stolovy, Dickey, Wolfire,
Babler, Clemens, Mathis, Watson, Whitney, Marston, Ashman

Next telecon: Wednesday December 18, 2002, 11 am CST, 608-265-1000 #4112

Frequency of telecons

  It was decided we'd go to a once a month schedule for telecons
  from now on.  Our next telecon is Wednesday Dec 18, 2002.

Report on the SIRTF Science User's Panel (SUP) meeting Nov 4-5	  Dan

  The launch date has slipped to January 29, 2002, at the earliest.

  SSC Software Scheduler update
  o can run Scheduler 4-5 times faster than real-time
  o early testing and SV observations have been put in Scheduler
  o haven't put in "steady state" observations in yet, e.g. GLIMPSE
    segments or other Legacy team observations
  o schedules with high efficiency
 
  Question: What if there is an extended IOC?
    They have pre-programmed all the IOC observations and have leads & teams for
    all sets of observations.  Don't expect big delays unless something
    serious is found.
 
  There will be a 100-day review (L+100).  If SIRTF performance is within ~20% 
    of nominal, then will proceed.

  The wrapping of some IRAC cables took out about half the level of the
    noise spike problem.  It is thought that this will be even less of
    a problem on orbit.
   
  Guest Observer Program - The Cycle-1 Call for Proposals was issued Nov 8. Proposals
    are due in June, 2003.  Proposers will be using SPOT to plan their
    observations.  The TAC will meet soon after the proposal deadline and if
    a proposal is approved, the observations will go right into the scheduler..
    might not have a chance to tweak the proposed observations.
    Do we want to write a proposal for MIPS 24 micron data in Cycle 1???

  SSC personnel have been working primarily on operational and testing issues. 
    Nov 19 & 20 is the readiness review at SSC. Post-BCD software is a lower
    priority at this time. Our main concern is the bandmerger.  


Launch date and Sci Verification Schedule	Ed
Implications of a launch delay on our observing
schedule					Christer

    With a launch delay and the possibility of IOC lasting longer than
    planned, we might not be able to observe the W51 region for our
    Science Verification Observation.  It disappears at the end of May.
    A possible replacement is the RCW57 region in the southern hemisphere
    (l=291.6, b=-0.5), which is just outside our current survey region.
    It has mid-June availability. We need to put together a back-up SV program,
    from l=-70 to l=-50.  Bob and Ed will pursue possible fields.

Reviews/Testing/Software  Tony

    Operational Review at SSC going well.  There will be a pre-ship review in a few days.
    More testing will be done.  A full setup test will be done in early December.
    No change in IRAC's instrument status.  It's been undergoing lots of testing
    and checks.
    Tony will check about the bandmerger.  We are most concerned now about
    I/O changes...settling on the I/O for the bandmerger would be useful for us.
    Other stuff is higher priority right now at SSC.  Might Remy go to Pasadena
    after the AAS in Seattle and talk to the developer?  

Mosaicing up-date				Barb

    Barb has been running both the SSC mosaicer and Montage.  Montage can 
    project to Galactic coordinates.  Montage has been run on our simulated 
    images in W51.  All 5 AORs worth.  Individual AORs and the combination
    of all 5.  Brian is starting to look at doing photometry on the mosaiced
    images.  Christer is downloading the 2MASS quicklook images from the All-Sky
    Survey for the GLIMPSE survey region.  Then we will mosaic those images
    for use in the QLVT.  (When the All-Sky Survey PSC and Atlas images are
    available, we will download those data for the GLIMPSE region.)
    Montage is 4 times slower than the SSC mosaicer (but Montage is doing the
    Galactic projection). Barb calculated it would take 128 days to mosaic 
    the GLIMPSE survey region (4 bands) on one processor using Montage.
    Ed reports that we've ordered more processors and another RAID array
    (8 disks with 200 GB/disk). We've also ordered a tape drive and tapes
    for backups.
    One question is ... is our overlap enough?  (12 pixels).  We won't really
    know that until we get the SV data.  How good will the flat fielding be?
    Simulated data can't tell us.
    
PASP Paper					Bob

    Bob has a complete first draft of the PASP paper.. which is a combination of the
    Science & Requirements Document, Data Products Doc, Extended Abstract and
    the original proposal.  It's to be submitted by the end of November.
    The UW folks will look at the draft first and give comments by Friday Nov 22,
    then Bob will send it to the entire team by Monday to get comments.

Completeness and Reliability Issues		Ed

    Ed talked to Tom Soifer about C & R.  Tom wants us to make sure we are
    testing our observing strategy.  Barb & Ed went to the UW Statistics Dept
    on Monday to discuss methods of determining C & R. The statistics folks are
    concerned about how we decide what is "truth" (currently 6 out of 10 detections).
    They thought it was too arbitrary.  We should use our truth table to help
    us determine our guidelines.  Barb & Ed & Remy will meet with the statistics
    folks again on Monday.