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Minutes of telecon of 2 Sept. 2003

Next telecon: Tuesday, Oct. 7  noon ET, 11:00 CT, 9:00 PT, first Tuesday of
the month!
IMPORTANT: see items 4 and 12!

1. EBC said that John Stauffer had told him that an image was taken
with IRAC last night, and that we should be prepared for good news,
although nothing official could be said. (As we all know, it has since 
been released publicly.)

2. EBC called attention to the memo regarding publication policies
that was distributed by SSC by email of 18 August ("Access to SIRTF
data..."). EBC will call T. Soifer to emphasize that we will surely
require observations as early as possible in order to check our
pipeline, since our own validation observations are so soon before our
legacy data should start. Early release will not occur until about 18
December.

3. Changes in team personnel:
    a. Sarah Seager has decided that she should be dropped because
of heavy commitments to other projects (including her new baby).
    b. We should add John Stauffer and Brian Uzpen (Chip's
student), Emily Mercer (BU).

4. FACE-TO-FACE MEETINGS(s): EBC invites/urges people to visit Madison 
in small groups **during October**, in order to provide
feedback/suggestions regarding the pipeline. Students are very
welcome, but **senior, experienced folks are needed for feedback**. Some
local people will be tutored as soon as practical, and they can act as
tutors for visitors. EBC can include expenses in his travel budget.
THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Remy: the pipeline will need a "final"(sic) algorithm for evaluating
the errors and best fluxes for the output catalog, given the
dispersions and quality flags on various data. He strongly invites
suggestions regarding the algorithm. He will ensure that it can be
easily changed in the pipeline.

5. EBC said that Madison will set up an FTP site for team members to
access the data (being properly careful about its distribution
outside, of course! SSC is very sticky about this; see Item 2 above),
Special requests can be accommodated, but not necessarily immediately.

6. Brian Uzpen (U. Wyoming) reported on his extractions of the
Hipparchos and Tycho catalogs, plus the Tycho spectral type catalog,
for the GLIMPSE area. His catalogs are in ASCII format. In the OSV
region, there are no Hipparchus and 23 Tycho stars. There are about
900 Hipparchus stars in the GLIMPSE survey area.

7. Dan C. reported on the BU cluster finding program. It works on
2MASS clusters. It will be incorporated into the pipeline someplace.

8. EBC: hardware purchases are 2 more dual-processor machines (plus 2
this summer for students), and a RAID disk array. Dan C. suggested a
DVD burner. Compatibility is very important, so that the burner can
write DVDs that all team members can read. Chip K. will distribute an
email giving advice on the best type. (Note: he did this very shortly
after the telecon.)

9. EBC: we need a person at SSC during SVO, provided we are sure that
this person can actually access data. These will probably be before
Christmas!  Remy might be willing to do this.

10. There are SIRTF postdocs available (call issued 18 August). The
deadline for applications is 14 Nov. EBC said that Naomi
McClure-Griffiths has already inquired.

11. There will be an Early Release Observations press conference on 18
Dec. (None of ours, of course).

12. There will be a special ApJL issue of July 1, for which the manuscript
deadline is 26 March. We will need to have papers based on
our validation observations done by then!! Teams will be:
    a. Colors of known objects: Brian Uzpen, Bob Benjamin...
    b. Cluster analyses: census, density, masses, ...
        Benjamin, DC, EBC, ...
    c. PAH/reddening of ISM: Mathis, Wolfire, Wolff, ...
    d. Star formation: Whitney, EBC, DC, ...
    e. Galactic structure: BU, Dickey, Benjamin, EBC ...
Of course, all teams will welcome additional members!