The Joint NOAO Nighttime Users Committee (UC) met in Tucson on 16-17 January 1998. Committee members present were Charles Bailyn (Yale), John Bally (Colorado), Jill Bechtold (Arizona), Mark Dickinson (JHU/STScI), Richard Elston (Florida), Martha Haynes (Cornell), David Lambert (Texas), Robert Mathieu (Wisconsin), Patricio Ortiz (Chile), Evan Skillman (Minnesota), and Michael Strauss (Princeton). Ben Snavely (NSF-NOAO Program Manager) also attended the sessions. The committee split into CTIO and KPNO subcommittees for part of one day. KPNO subcommittee members were Mathieu (Chair), Bally, Dickinson, Elston, Haynes, and Skillman. CTIO subcommittee members were Bailyn (Chair), Bechtold, Lambert, Ortiz, and Strauss. The chair of the joint committee rotates between the CTIO subcommittee and KPNO subcommittee chairs; this year Mathieu was the joint committee chair.
The joint committee received written summaries of all presentations prior to the meeting, as well as published documents and summaries of important meetings that had occurred during the year. The committee heard reports from: Sidney Wolff on the status of the observatories; Richard Green on progress on the NOAO renewal plan; Todd Boroson on organizational issues with respect to user support, including time allocation, instrument information, and data analysis in the Gemini era; Paul Smith on the WIYN queue; and Green on instrumentation planning. In addition, all of the Directors led a discussion of the quality of the scientific research environment for NOAO staff.
The centerpiece of last year's UC meeting was a forward-looking vision for the development of new facilities at CTIO and KPNO. This vision is so central to the strategic planning of NOAO that its description in last year's UC report merits repeating here:
"The NOAO Director presented a positive vision for KPNO and CTIO in which both observatories continue to play a forefront role in national groundbased optical/IR astronomy in the Gemini era. This vision encompasses an array of telescope apertures, including the 0.9-m telescopes with Mosaic imagers in the short term and ultimately 2.4-m telescopes in both hemispheres. It also includes a fundamentally new perception of the observatories as systems, whereby each observatory provides a suite of capabilities for the planning, execution, and data reduction of a scientific program. Successful completion of programs will involve classical observing, queue and service observing at multiple telescopes, and access to databases, all facilitated within the context of the observatory. This approach will provide both superior scientific performance and enhanced efficiency through streamlining operations, avoiding duplication, and unifying processes and functions across sites (including Gemini)."
The committee last year adjourned with a strong endorsement for the development and submission to the NSF of an NOAO Renewal Proposal. A primary focus of this year's meeting was assessment of progress toward this goal. Substantial progress toward the above vision has been made during the past year, although the path taken has changed. Ben Snavely reported that as a consequence of the priorities set by the NSF panel that jointly reviewed the NOAO Cooperative Agreement and Renewal proposals in 1996, it was unlikely that the NSF would fund the construction of two new 2.4-m telescopes at this time. In order to move ahead nonetheless, NOAO has begun development of a collaboration with the University of Colorado and the University of Minnesota to build a 2.4-m telescope on Kitt Peak. The details of the collaboration are still in development, but NOAO has submitted a Major Research Initiative (MRI) proposal to the NSF in partial support of such a facility. The present plan is for the facility to replace the 0.9-m telescope, with a design emphasizing wide-field imaging in both the optical and, especially, the near infrared. The UC endorsed this plan since it creates a fast track for a new facility on Kitt Peak and makes a substantive first step toward the NOAO Renewal vision.
At the same time, some members of the committee expressed disappointment that a comprehensive proposal had not been developed. There is a serious need for extensive articulation of the renewal vision to the community and to the NSF, and a vehicle for communication of that vision must be found. Furthermore, it is critical that the community be more involved with the development of this document and subsequent proposals. While a UC member was asked to review the MRI proposal, which is to the good, there was little community involvement in the development of the proposal outside of members of partner institutions. The plan for the southern 2.4-m telescope remains to be developed; NOAO needs to use this as a first inclusive effort with the community.
Ultimately, the UC remains eager for NOAO access to the equivalent of one 2.4-m telescope at both KPNO and CTIO. More broadly, the UC strongly endorses continued development of collaborations. Collaborations such as WIYN and SOAR leverage private resources for the national community, foster community linkages which lead to stability for the observatories, and enhance communication between NOAO and the community. While the UC recognizes that such collaborations lead to some inefficiency given that the staff effort results in only a partial telescope share, the reality is that these telescopes would not exist at all without the collaborations. Furthermore, in order to alleviate the additional load which these collaborations place on the staff and the technical infrastructure of the observatory, the UC strongly recommends that in the future, tenants and partners be required to contribute on-site scientific staff in addition to making appropriate financial contributions.
Instrumentation development continues to be a vital component of the NOAO operation. The essential principle guiding the program is the provision of instruments which provide the community with a competitive edge.
Phoenix, the high-resolution infrared spectrograph, will provide resolutions as high as 100,000, a capability unmatched by any other observatory in the world. Unfortunately, commissioning of the instrument has been delayed due to optical problems associated with the grating. The UC strongly endorsed the commitment of high-priority resources to completion of Phoenix. Furthermore, the committee recommended that upon successful commissioning Phoenix be shipped to CTIO. The committee found the scientific arguments for use on the southern sky compelling, particularly in light of the tip-tilt capability of the Blanco telescope. Furthermore, the UC considered sending Phoenix to CTIO as an essential (de facto) endorsement of the recently established integrated instrument program for the nighttime observatories.
The UC was asked to prioritize a list of nine candidate instrument starts. With present resources, a major new instrument is completed every 1-1.5 years, meaning that any given telescope sees a new instrument every five years. Hence, these prioritizations are a critical role of the UC. The UC easily reached consensus on three instruments; further prioritization of these instruments depends upon external factors as yet unknown. We recommended that priority be given to:
1) a wide-field near-infrared imager, with very high priority if the development of 2.4-m telescopes proceeds;
2) a GNIRS (Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph) clone for the south, providing infrared spectroscopic capability to both SOAR and Gemini South; and
3) a high-throughput optical spectrograph. The last is specifically an endorsement of Sam Barden's investigations into very high efficiency gratings, which the UC felt had the potential for a major advance in optical spectroscopy.
With respect to other instrumentation issues, the UC expressed strong concern over the recent reduction of the infrared instrumentation group, at one time one of the foremost teams in the world. The UC strongly recommended immediate, targeted revitalization of this group with the goal of leadership in wide-field infrared imaging and infrared spectroscopy.
The UC also endorsed investigation of a near-infrared capability for the WIYN multi-object spectrograph, a potentially exciting opportunity which would fill the present gap in bright-time WIYN capabilities. Discussions made it clear that the scientific opportunities provided by a near infrared multi-object spectrograph remain to be well defined. The UC recommended incorporation of the community in assessing the scientific value of such a capability; if compelling then an investigation of the technical issues should proceed.
Gemini North is on schedule for first light next winter, while Gemini South is scheduled for first light in mid-2000. The community should be aware that proposal submission for Gemini observations is imminent, perhaps as early as fall 1999. At present, the plan is for Gemini observing time to be scheduled roughly half classically and half queue. Gemini will provide user support only from "sea-level to sea-level," i.e. during observations. All other support of United States astronomers will be provided by NOAO. These tasks include information on facility and instrument capabilities, the proposal and time assignment process, data reduction support, archive access, and remote observing support. This is a substantial increase in the support responsibilities of NOAO, with no associated increase in funding.
Boroson gave the UC a description of the new SCOPE (SCience OPErations) division of NOAO. (A detailed description of the division responsibilities can be found at the NOAO web page.) The integration of all user support services in SCOPE is driven both by a vision of NOAO as an integrated observatory and by anticipated efficiencies which will reduce the impact of Gemini user support on support for the smaller telescopes at KPNO and CTIO. Note that SCOPE will also handle user support with respect to community access to the Hobby-Eberly telescope and the upgraded MMT.
The UC endorsed the integration of user support and therefore resources within a single management structure of NOAO. At the same time, the UC made several strong recommendations to guide the development of this system:
1) The principle of aperture priority should be extended to the Gemini telescopes.
2) The UC saw a need for strong oversight of SCOPE by the Observatory Directors. SCOPE exists to serve the observatories, and therefore, it is essential that the observatories be involved in setting the directions of SCOPE activities. Indeed, the UC recommended consideration of a management structure where SCOPE held a position similar to the instrument program. In this context, it may be preferable formally to remove USGP from SCOPE.
3) The UC felt that SCOPE resources must be distributed among the observatories, and in particular that some SCOPE scientific staff members be resident at CTIO. Similarly, it is essential that both CTIO and KPNO scientific staff continue to be involved in the time assignment process.
4) We endorse Boroson's prioritization of responsibilities for SCOPE, given the present staffing level. In the present tight funding, the UC saw no justification for the expansion of that staffing level to take on additional desirable, but not critical, responsibilities. The UC also endorsed working collaboratively with Gemini partners for efficiency. For example, it did not seem wise for SCOPE to take on data archiving development when Canada is clearly a leader in such endeavors; in return, NOAO is well positioned to take the lead in development of Gemini data reduction and analysis tools.
The UC urged rapid development of a detailed plan for integrated user support, in close consultation with the Observatory Directors and the community through the UC.
It is clear that effective use of Gemini will require preparatory work at small telescopes, in many cases requiring only limited data (photometry and astrometry, for example). The UC recommended that in the spirit of an integrated observatory, NOAO develop a system for service observing at the smaller telescopes. The size of this program (e.g., observations beyond support of Gemini, the extent of data reduction, etc.) should be revisited at the next UC meeting.
Finally, the UC endorsed support of surveys as an integral component of the NOAO mission, particularly with respect to the new 2.4-m telescopes. At the same time the UC did not feel that the execution of surveys should be a responsibility of NOAO staff. Rather, the UC favored competitive proposals for surveys to be executed by the proposing team (on which NOAO scientists could be members as part of their research endeavors). The UC recommended the development and articulation of a policy on surveys via an (ad hoc) committee, including both UC members and a representative of the NRAO committee which recently went through the same process and produced a well thought out policy paper.
The Joint UC received a report from Smith on the performance of the WIYN queue. At this point the queue is fully commissioned and performing nominally. It is not anticipated that the queue performance will increase substantially in the future. The UC congratulated both Smith and the queue team on their development of the system.
Last year the UC recommended that once operations were nominal, a cost-benefit analysis be done in comparison to classical scheduling. Note that the cost of the queue program is roughly 2 FTE; this would not be entirely recovered given classical scheduling since the latter requires user support. For a comparison, Di Harmer mocked up classical scheduling of the non-synoptic queue proposals, permitting a comparison with queue performance given the actual weather pattern during the spring 1997 semester. The overall completion rate of programs was very similar. However, the queue completion is biased toward higher ranked proposals, as designed. Interestingly, if typical programs only need roughly 50% completion in order to derive publishable results, the performance of classical and queue scheduling are very similar even with respect to proposal ranking . Of course, only queue scheduling permits synoptic programs.
To summarize, at the cost of 2 FTE, the queue provides higher observing efficiency, enables synoptic observations, and favors higher ranked proposals. The queue has also served the invaluable role of introducing the community to queue observing in preparation for Gemini operations and providing an experiential foundation for service observing in the Gemini era. On the other hand, queue observing does not provide as broad a distribution of data within the community, fosters less community ownership of the facilities, and does not promote experimentation.
The UC concluded that the WIYN queue should be continued another year in the spirit of an ongoing experiment, and reassessed at that time.
The UC, with the support of Snavely from the NSF, strongly encouraged the development of an enhanced national public relations and educational outreach activity at NOAO. It is unfortunate that the scientific achievements made possible by NOAO facilities receive so much less publicity than those made with NASA missions and private facilities. We believe that this has resulted in a diminished appreciation of NOAO at NSF, within the scientific community, and among the general public. Most users do not know where to go to find help in publicizing exciting results made with NOAO facilities, in dramatic contrast with the situation at NASA. We therefore recommend that additional resources be put into public relations at NOAO, perhaps modeled on the highly successful effort at STScI, that users be frequently reminded of the public relations support that does exist, and that users be solicited for science suitable for public dissemination. We believe that application of resources in this area will repay itself many times over as NOAO moves to enhance its funding. To skimp on public relations and educational outreach is a false economy, even (or perhaps especially) in these financially strained times.
The UC reaffirmed its position last year that the advocacy of an independent KPNO director is critical. Both the Joint and KPNO UCs congratulated the present KPNO Director, Richard Green, for a job very well done. Nonetheless, the UC would prefer to see a Director of KPNO dedicated to that task alone and we strongly recommend that a search for KPNO Director be initiated in the coming year.
The UC was presented with three initiatives for execution in FY 1999, of which KPNO resources would permit completion of one or two. These were:
1) Moving the coudé spectrograph to the 4-m coudé room, with a fiber feed from the 4-m. This would provide spectral resolutions as high as R = 315,000. With an image slicer, the estimated sensitivity gain was 2 mags fainter than the Coudé Feed (now closed) or a fiber feed from the 2.1-m, although there remains some uncertainty over this number.
2) Installation of a tip-tilt capability at the Mayall 4-m f/15 focus, similar to the facility at the Blanco 4-m.
3) Continued DIQ improvements at the Mayall 4-m. The present median seeing is 1.1" compared to 0.8" at WIYN. The connection of seeing performance to the thermal control of the mirror is now well established and the DIQ team feels that rapid gains can be accomplished.
The UC placed continued work on the 4-m DIQ performance as the top priority. However, the UC was split in its choice of the second priority initiative (with support of the high-spectral-resolution capability being contingent on demonstration of at least a 2 mag gain in sensitivity over a fiber feed from the 2.1-m).
Last year, the UC expressed concern that the WIYN Observatory, the forefront facility on Kitt Peak, was not being adequately developed and utilized, particularly with respect to bright-time capabilities. During the past year the WIYN consortium submitted a Major Research Initiative (MRI) proposal to the NSF to develop a tip-tilt imaging system with both optical and non-thermal infrared capabilities for WIYN. The consortium is also considering two smaller upgrades:
(1) an instrument adapter system for the folded Cass port which would permit the wide-field imager (Nasmyth) and the DensePak fiber (Cass) to both be accessible during a night, and
(2) a motor/controller upgrade for Hydra which would halve the fiber setup time. Both of these initiatives were supported by the UC. Finally, the UC discussed a non-thermal infrared capability for Hydra, as discussed in the instrument section above.
Bruce Bohannan reported on the initiatives to reduce observing technician (OT) turnover. Many of the ideas presented at the last UC meeting have been implemented. These include an increase in the number of OTs by one to provide time for professional development, the creation of a supervisor of observing support providing better communication and guidance (filled by Paul Smith), a work schedule which includes daytime support duties, professionalization of the position by making it salaried, and development of a career path. The UC was very appreciative of these developments and anticipate that they will result in a better working environment for both OT's and visiting astronomers.
Bohannan also discussed several metrics of facility performance. The NOAO large telescopes at both KPNO and CTIO compare very well with both large private facilities and other national observatories in low failure rates, time on the sky, numbers of papers published, and average citations per paper. Furthermore, the national facilities compare well with other observatories in costs of operation, even given the typically higher level of user support at KPNO and CTIO. Of course, the lower cost-to-service ratio is a direct result of the severe financial cuts that NOAO has received, and arguably has not been good for the health of the observatory.
The committee was impressed with Malcolm Smith's report on the many exciting new activities at Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachon. In addition to ongoing work on Gemini South, new partnerships are in place with SOAR, YALO (Yale-AURA-Lisbon-Ohio: the new consortium which will operate the Yale 1-m telescope) and several infrared instrumentation groups. There are also a number of tenants on Cerro Tololo, including GONG, 2MASS, USNO and the Swarthmore robotic telescope. We endorse the vision of CTIO as a site for partnerships and tenants who require access to the southern skies, and we congratulate the director and staff of CTIO for their hard work in facilitating these projects.
Malcolm Smith updated the committee on recent activities and proposed priorities for the near future. In particular, the Blanco image improvement project has progressed: subarcsecond seeing is now routinely obtained at the Cass port as well as at prime focus. The UC commends the staff for their continuing efforts on this project.
Upcoming instrumentation efforts include creating a Mosaic clone and a Hydra clone for the south, and moving Phoenix to CTIO as soon as commissioning is completed in Tucson. The UC strongly endorses these efforts, and urges NOAO to provide whatever resources are required to complete these projects as soon as possible.
Smith reported future priorities developed by him and his staff as follows:
The UC endorses these priorities, with the following recommendations:
1) As noted above, tenants and partners should be expected to contribute scientific staff as well as financial contributions. The level of scientific staff contributed by each project should be such that no additional burden falls on the CTIO scientific staff as new projects are initiated.
2) There should be no reduction in support for the 1.5-m and 0.9-m telescopes until new 2-m class telescopes are available for the community at CTIO. While we endorse the ultimate goal of replacing the smaller telescopes with new 2-m class telescopes, it is very important that community access to the 1.5-m and 0.9-m telescopes continue until a full 2-m class telescope (either a whole telescope or half shares of two telescopes) is available.
3) The UC regards the wide field imaging capability of the Curtis-Schmidt telescope as important. We urge that this telescope continue to be supported until an alternative way to provide wide field optical imaging on a telescope smaller than the Blanco is available.
We heard with great concern of the overwork and low morale of the CTIO scientific staff, and in particular of Mark Phillips' decision to leave CTIO. Mark has provided extraordinary service to CTIO for many years. We thank him for his efforts, and wish him well in the future.
In addition to the problems faced by scientific staff throughout NOAO, the CTIO scientists feel "out of the loop" regarding crucial decisions being taken in Tucson which affect the future of CTIO and NOAO in general. This perception of isolation has now become a problem in itself, extending beyond the specific irritations which gave rise to it. We urge CTIO and NOAO, as a matter of highest priority, to work together to take advantage of the great expertise and experience of the CTIO staff in both strategic and day-to-day decisionmaking at NOAO. In particular, we regard it as essential that CTIO staff be closely involved with resource allocation in instrumentation, and that some resources associated with SCOPE be located in La Serena.
We endorse the short-term plan to hire junior staff scientists this year to restore scientific staffing to nominal levels. However, we also regard the office of Deputy Director as crucial for CTIO, particularly given the Director's responsibilities to parts of AURA nominally outside of CTIO, and consequent travel schedule. We therefore recommend that a search for a new Deputy Director be initiated as soon as possible.
We also strongly encourage the continuation and expansion of the post-doc program at CTIO. In addition to providing a constant influx of new blood into La Serena, this program has historically provided a fertile breeding ground for future CTIO staff members.
In addition to the observatory-wide measures endorsed below, we recommend an enhanced program of joint scientific activities with non-CTIO astronomers, especially those associated with Gemini, SOAR, and other partner and tenant projects, as well as those resident at other institutions in Chile. Even in these fiscally constrained times, applying resources, both human and financial, to these sorts of activities is very important.
The caliber of the national observatories is determined by the caliber of their scientific staffs. It is these colleagues who provide the vision, the implementation, and the support which keeps NOAO at the forefront. There has been a longstanding debate about the necessity of a scientific staff within NOAO. It is the UC's observation and experience that the invention and execution of progressive ideas for NOAO facilities comes primarily from within. While the national community provides guidance and counsel in selection of initiatives, the suite of choices derives largely from NOAO staff. Similarly once the choices are made it is typically the NOAO scientific and engineering staff which makes them a reality. And finally, it is the NOAO scientific staff which provides the high-level support, e.g. who know from experience the optimal flatfielding approach for your program. For all of these reasons, the UC firmly endorses the maintenance of a superb scientific staff at the national observatories.
NOAO can only hope to attract, retain, and develop the highest quality scientific staff if their working environment permits active research programs. The present overload of NOAO staff has overly limited the time for research, and NOAO is vulnerable to a decrease of both numbers and vitality. The situation is unacceptable for the long term. We strongly encourage NOAO to pursue creative ways of enhancing the scientific environment at both KPNO and CTIO, including:
1) Creative duty scheduling, e.g. permitting mini-sabbaticals.
2) Formal commitments of staff from the partners of collaborations such as WIYN and SOAR.
3) Less observer support; the community has repeatedly expressed a willingness to "rough it" at the telescopes if necessary to maintain the vitality of NOAO.
4) Enhance programs to attract visitors with support responsibilities.
5) Continue to argue that the NSF take on the currency variations which saps CTIO resources.
However, these are only bandages that cannot cure the essential need for an increased staff size in recognition of the expansion of support responsibilities in the Gemini era. We encourage continued priority for the development of such resources.
We also strongly encourage improved communications between the staff at each observatory. In particular, we feel that it is essential that staff at each observatory regularly make extended visits elsewhere within NOAO. This could be accomplished via the mini-sabbaticals suggested above. We also would encourage an annual "all-NOAO" science meeting, rotated among the sites. Recognizing that these suggestions require allocation of resources, we feel that the investment in communication will return handsome rewards to NOAO.
We close this report with our sincere thanks to the staff of NOAO, and with encouragement to the community to express appreciation for their effort in your behalf.
The Joint NOAO Nighttime Users Committee