Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Status and Plans

Alistair Walker

Tucson, AZ 4 October, 2005

NationalOpticalAstronomyObservatory

Plan of this talk

1. The Big Issues

2. Staffing

3. Blanco & its Instrumentation

4. User statistics

5. Blanco NEWFIRM & DECam

6. SOAR & its Instrumentation

7. SAM status

8. SMARTS II

The Big Issues

Senior Review - NOAO proposal is to privatize 10% of the Blanco. In the post-2009 timeframe this equates to 50% NOAO, 30% DES instrumentation partnership, 10% Chile, 10% financial partner.

Dark Energy Task Force - report will determine whether mid-term (i.e. pre-LSST, pre-JDEM) experiments such as DES are worthwhile. The equivalent UK committee report (due ~November) will affect participation by UK partners.

Money - NOAO budget low. CTIO & KPNO are lower priority. 25% of NOAO budget goes to NOAO-SCTIO and KPNO each cost ~$4M /annum, i.e. each ~15%of the NOAO base budget.

LSST - site decision April 2006. Call for site proposals ~ now.

Staffing - Evolving CTIO staff successfully - program and finance issues.

NOAO-S staffing - what people do

• Scientific staff ramp-up for NGSC, TMT site-testing and Data Products• Transfer of Engineering staff into MI, LSST, TMT• Telescope operations in static mode - change as little as possible• Thus a conflict with keeping the facility state-of-the-art• Solution - sharing NEWFIRM, partnership for DECam• Complex & expensive instruments - high expectations

NOAO-S FTE in FY-06

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scientists

Blanco Telescope

• Telescope & instrument suite (Mosaic, ISPI, Hydra, RC Spec) have performed reliably overall, details later

• Shutdown in October 2005 to fix three broken lateral supports - new design for counterweight assemblies, and weighing primary should allow testing of the “definitive fix”, replace the remainder in a year’s time.

• Modeling and measuring - the primary is moving, significantly• Small effort to come up with conceptual design for replacement of the TCS in 2007, CoDR by end of

2005.

Blanco Telescope

Blanco Telescope

Blanco 4-m breakdown by run

20.5

5.5

74

Fraction lost toweather

Fraction lost tofaults

Fraction usedeffectively

Blanco Telescope User Statistics

0.16

0.27

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0.17

0.16

0.64

0.16

0.77

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Mosaic ISPI Hydra RC Spec

Instrument

Mean hours/night lost due to failure

instrument & interface

telescope & facility

Blanco Telescope User Statistics

Goals Achieved, from Blanco EOR reports

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Percentage Goals Achieved

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Weather-corrected

• Data for 2005 Jan 1 - Sept 20.

• 61 observers, 172 nights

• Weather corrections assume zero technical losses, but also >100% figures are truncated

Blanco Instrumentation

– MOSAIC II• Working reliably (CCD replaced last year)• Mosaic “status and upgrades” document written by Tim Abbott• Transputers, SUN workstations and SUN OS all obsolete

– ISPI• Easy to use, last bugs swatted• Users are happy it seems

– HYDRA• Replacement of Gripper Motor improved reliability? • Hydra “status & upgrades” document written by Knut Olsen

– RC SPEC• CCD problems, now running in MPP mode, long term reliability is in question• No detector replacement available - investigate CCD mount Oct-Nov.• Goodman spectrograph is the replacement

–

Community Access to Big Glass in the South

Telescope Instrument 2005 A+B new Requests. 2005 nights schedulednights (nights pre-

committed)Blanco Mosaic 189 138(39)

ISPI 101 54(0)Hydra 87 62(14)RC Spec 109 53(2)

SOAR Goodman Sp. 30Optical Imager 11 ~50 totalOSIRIS 11

Gemini S GMOS 137GNIRS 108Phoenix 118 ~130 totalTREcS 49

Magellan IMACS 9PANIC 4 ~10 totalMIKE 15

Blanco Instrumentation Evolution

• Mosaic => Dark Energy Camera

• ISPI => NEWFIRM (~50% duty cycle)

• HYDRA => upgrade?

• RC Spectrograph => retire

Multi-object spectrographs compared

See the “Hydra Report” by Knut Olsen for details

Does an upgrade for Hydra make sense?

(i) Survey for high target density (e.g. faint galaxy survey) (ii) Survey for moderate target density (here, all stars to V=16 at galactic latitude b = 45 deg.)

THE FUTURE - 4K x 4K NEWFIRM

– Shared between KPNO and CTIO

– Status: On Mayall for testing in early 2006

– Mayall/Blanco sharing TBD. Strawman would be to come south in mid 2008 for 9 months?

– Concern that surveys get efficiently completed

– Need to avoid collision with DECam

THE FUTURE - 22Kx22K Dark Energy Camera

• Proposal received from Fermilab led consortium (UIUC, U Chicago, UCB/LBNL) in response to AO

• Reviewed by SAGENAP, Temple Review, BIRP• Study Dark Energy using four complementary techniques:

– Cluster counts & clustering

– Weak lensing

– Galaxy clustering\

– SNe Ia distances

Two multiband surveys:

5000 deg2 g, r, i, z

40 deg2 repeat (SNe)

• 3 sq. deg. Field camera• New corrector• Data pipelines, archives• Survey - 30% time for 5 years

• Deliver early 2009

WWW site: https://plone3.fnal.gov/DES/Plone/the-project

Dark Energy Survey Organization• DES is divided into 2 projects under direction of Project Director John Peoples

– WBS 1.0 Instrument project – Fermilab is leading institution– WBS 2.0 Data Management project – UIUC/NCSA is leading institution

Instrument project provides simulated and real data to Data management project

Dark Energy Camera Update

• Partnership

– UCL, U. Cambridge, U. Edinburgh, Institut d’Estudis Especials de Catalunya, Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies, U. Michigan.

– OSU, Penn, U Portsmouth applications. Recent contact with U. Geneva.

– New partners have greatly strengthened the collaboration technically.

– NOAO is engaged managerially, scientifically, in data management, in front-end electronics (Monsoon), and in telescope issues.

– Strong and capable project management.

• Funding

– UCL-led PPARC funding application, $2.5M; Barcelona institutes ~$800K. All partners come in with a mixture of cash & kind.

– UIUC data management proposal to NSF “Cyberinfrastructure to Support Science and Data Management for the Dark Energy Survey”

– DECam is in the Fermilab future budget, money is tight at DOE…

– Dark Energy Roadmap reports are gating -> HEPAP -> DOE. Assume go/no-go ~ March 2006

– Need to order glass in April 2006 to keep schedule ($700K)

Dark Energy Camera Update

CCDs

• Excellent progress with apparently good yield. On schedule.

• Lot 1A

– 5 wafers are finished with LBNL processing and are being cold probed; expect to finish this week

– sent for dicing next week

• Lot 1B

– 21 wafers delivered to LBNL, 10 sent out for thinning

– Processing of 5 will start at LBNL as soon as they come back

– Dalsa still holding the thick ones, pending the particulate count testing at Dalsa

• Lot 2A, 2B

– requisition for 2 lots (48 wafers from Dalsa), approved, awaiting procurement

Dark Energy Camera Update

Optics

• Design has shrunk some - field and scale remain the same (trade is size vs. aspheres)

• Mixed glass design dropped

• Schedule - workshop July 6-7, formal meetings every 2 months, now need to look at performance, cost, buildability, schedule issues.

• Slumping the front element a development issue?

• Finalize design Dec 2005, PDR (at UCL) March 2006.

• Order glass April 2006

Designs by Rachel Bernstein (U. Mich), based on earlierwork by Steve Kent & MikeGladders.

Data Management Development Plan• Collaboration between

– Univ. of Illinois & NCSA (LEADER: Joe Mohr)– NOAO Data Products Program– Fermilab– Univ. of Chicago

• The Task– Process 200 TB of raw data in four bands over the five years of the DES into science-ready images,

co-adds, and catalogs– The DES dataset will approach 1PB including a 100 TB catalog that will serve as a key science

analysis tool– A similar amount of raw data from community science over the same period

• Solution– Merge DES needs with NOAO DPP program plans

• Focus DES resources on DES-specific needs– Produce ONE Archive, ONE Pipeline, ONE data management system overall

• Initial Activities – WG formation (archives, automatic/grid processing,pipelines)– LSST synergy, NOAO activities, Essence/DM pipelines etc.

LSST DECam UnitCamera 6.3 1.0 GB Exposure 15 100 secondsRaw/night 15 0.36 TBRaw rate 4000 100 MbpsOC3 155 155 MbpsFIU 45(155) 45(155) Mbps

Data Management Progress

• System design completed• System to be tested by series of Data Challenges 2005-2009• DC0 - converted existing pipelines; test on workstationswith mock DECam data (12/04 - 3/05)• Proceeding using UIUC seed money and NCSA support• AST grant application for Cyberinfrastructure

SOAR

TELESCOPE & FACILITY

–2005A&B - shared risk science - not much of the 2005A science was done - nominally 1 dark week/month was –for science, but weather and engineering took their toll - poor baffling; azimuth encoder problem (2.5/12)–M1 lateral support problem - remake necessary, CDR in August 2005. A year’s delay from what I said 12 months –ago. Substantial cash and labor input from partners–Dome shutter repair scheduled for October 2006–M3 tip-tilt assembly being commissioned, environment control exercised–M3 baffles installed, M1 still to be done–2006A “shared risk” science at 25-40% level, 2006B “regular operations”

Discovery of fourteen new ZZ Cetis with SOARastro-ph/0507490 accepted on A&A

S. O. Kepler, B. G. Castanheira, M. F. O. Saraiva, A. Nitta, S. J. Kleinman, F. Mullally, D. E. Winget & D. J. Eisenstein

SOAR instruments

– Optical Imager in regular use. Baffling improved, light-emitting encoders shielded.

– OSIRIS. Installed, aligned, in use

– Goodman Spectrograph (R = 300, 600, 1200 cf RC Spectrograph R =160, 300, 600, 1200). In commissioning phase. LL CCDs, initial tests show need for O2 soak, another bad foundry run experience. Commissioning using Apogee camera - not available for science in 2005A.

– Spartan IR imager and IFU Spectrograph due in 2006

– Phoenix - in principle, could be installed in 2006. He lines are in-place

– STELES and SAM in 2007-2008

SAM

– NOAO Instrument Contribution to SOAR

– Ground Layer AO system using Rayleigh laser

– NOAO Major Instrumentation Project. PM is Nicole van der Bliek, PS is Andrei Tokovinin

– PDR in December 2005, NGS version on-telescope early 2007, LGS version a year later

Improved angular resolution at optical & IR wavelengths - factor 2-5

Uniform and selective compensation of low-altitude turbulence

Relatively wide field (3 arc minutes)

Correction uses low altitude Rayleigh laser plus 2 or more guide stars R < 18

http://www.ctio.noao.edu/new/Telescopes/SOAR/Instruments/SAM/

Improved angular resolution at optical & IR wavelengths - factor 2-5

Uniform and selective compensation of low-altitude turbulence

Relatively wide field (3 arc minutes)

Correction uses low altitude Rayleigh laser plus 2 or more guide stars R < 18

http://www.ctio.noao.edu/new/Telescopes/SOAR/Instruments/SAM/

Small Telescopes

SMARTS INSTRUMENTS

– 1.5m Mostly Cass Spectrograph with Loral 1K CCD, but large block of U. Montreal IR Imager CPAPIR (AMNH) time in 2005A, 2005B. Instrument arrived early January 2005

– 1.3m ANDICAM (OSU). Dual CCD/IR Imager Q-scheduled. IR array problem (dead quadrant) fixed Jan 2005,

– 1.0m CCD Imager (OSU). The Fairchild 4K CCD finally arrived, and was commissioned in July 2005

– 0.9m CCD Imager (CTIO). New TCS installed March 2005

SMARTS Publications

http://www.astro.yale.edu/smarts/pubs.html

refereed Conf. Teleg/letters2005 11 5 162006 11 5 282003 0 2 16

Plus three PhD theses listed

SMARTS II kick-off meeting October 8 at AMNH

Other Community Facilities

• GONG

• PROMPT– UNC, PI Dan Reichart– 6 x 0.5m telescopes, GRB rapid-response, triggers ToO at SOAR– Significant education component– Status - Two telescopes operating, Jan 1 2006 is nominal full ops start

• SCHMIDT– NASA debris (geosynchronous orbit) program - Pat Seitzer (U. Mich)

• BOCHUM Hexapod - NO

• SWARTHMORE All-Sky Emission Line Survey - revived…

• ALPACA 8-m survey telescope? P.I. Arlin Crotts

• SARA South Robotic conversion of the Lowell 0.6-m telescope?

• Las Cumbres Observatory Global telescope network - 0.6-m and then 2.5-m robotic telescopes?

• USNO 1.0m URAT survey?

Final thoughts

• A long-term (2014+) role for the Blanco could be as part of a network of telescopes following up on LSST discoveries (assuming Decadal Survey endorsement). SMARTS-like operation is envisaged.

• For the years 2009-2014 the DES should produce a compelling science result; provides a flagship archive for NOAO to curate, and is a stepping stone to LSST technically, operationally, and scientifically.

• The alternative is not business as usual, but almost certain closure. In the near-term, UC advice on surveys/non-survey split, run length, instrumentation, operations modes for the Blanco telescope would be invaluable.

• Over the next five years SOAR must succeed. Success = being thought of as “slightly stunted member of the 6-8 m club", achieved by demonstrating equivalent performance in niches like the blue-UV, visible light AO, etc.

• SMARTS has proven very successful, and a model that can be grown (to include larger telescopes, but preferably not too many more consortium members)

• CTIO is ideally sited for being the operations center for US public-private facilities, and a site for independent facilities and experiments.