1. CTIO and the Dark Energy Camera Prepared for the CD-1 Director’s Review Tuesday, July 25, 2006 Fermilab Alistair R. Walker

2. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW2 Topics for this talk Announcement of Opportunity. DES proposal and review. Review recommendations. The CTIO site and the Blanco telescope. Blanco Telescope Improvements. CTIO staff involvement. DECam and the community.

3. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW3 Announcement of Opportunity To develop, in partnership with NOAO, a major new instrument for the Blanco 4m telescope at CTIO. Suggested that such an instrument exploit the wide-field capabilities of the telescope. This would be a facility instrument - useable by the community, available ~2008. Up to 30% of the time would be made available for 5 yrs. NOAO would contribute telescope operations, some telescope upgrades, and partner in Data Management. Letters of intent due by March 15 2004; Proposals due by August 15 2004. A proposal from the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration was received on July 15, 2004.

4. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW4 Proposal & Review The Dark Energy Survey Consortium proposed to build a very large prime-focus CCD imager, and with it carry out a galaxy survey in the South Galactic Cap, to improve our knowledge of Dark Energy. External Review by the BIRP = Blanco Instrumentation Review Panel –Were impressed by the thorough scientific and technical description of the project. –Thought the instrument would be an asset to the national observing system, and the survey archive would enable an enormous amount of science.

5. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW5 BIRP recommendations They recommended to proceed with the partnership, provided that: –The camera, the data reduction pipelines and the DES data archive be deliverables. –There be an external oversight committee. –DECam should not preclude use of the F/8 focus. –Filter complement changes be possible as part of normal operations. –NOAO should supplement the consortium griz filters. –An E/PO plan be integrated into the project. –NOAO commit adequate resources to enable community science. –A formal set of written acceptance testing plans and performance metrics be developed.

6. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW6 The CTIO Site CTIO is a division of NOAO, operates the Blanco and SOAR 4-m telescopes, and is part of the SMARTS small telescope consortium. AURA manages NOAO under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. The legal entity in Chile is AURA. NOAO in Chile employs 86 people, participating in all NOAO programs. CTIO has Scientific staff, an Engineering group, and a Telescope operations group. The La Serena campus is shared with Gemini, SOAR, and soon, LSST. Users - a very diverse and creative community. Chile - 10% time. Operations are carried out with full regard of Chilean and US (OSHA) standards and guidelines. The NSF Senior Review can potentially affect CTIO’s ability to participate in this project.

7. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW7

8. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW8

9. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW9 The Blanco Telescope Commissioned in 1974, largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere until 1998, primary mirror quality (D80 = 0.25 arcsec) defined state-of-the-art. Prime focus CCD imagers leaders in AΩ. The critical observations for the discovery of Dark Energy were made with this telescope. Extensive set of improvements in the 90’s, led by Jack Baldwin. –Primary mirror active support system (active optics), to replace the passive support system. –Environmental improvements, e.g. windows in the dome to promote air flow, removal of heat sources. THE SITE: - October to January - weather improving, nights get shorter (av. 6.8 hr/night useable) - Mean site seeing at 5m above ground = 0.65 arcsec

10. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW10 Blanco telescope - recent progress Primary mirror repositioned 2.3mm in z-direction Radial support mechanism understood Mirror movement in cell identified and (partially) resolved Telescope flexure measured Aluminization chamber upgrade underway Two degree slew time reduction from 35s to 17s - feasibility established  Image Quality obtained by the SuperMacho program, 2005B, airmass corrected, VR filter. Dates: 2005-09-05 to 2005-12- 31, Blue: pre-shutdown, red: post-shutdown, approx equal number (~580) exposures each.

11. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW11 Blanco Telescope - still to come Telescope –Fully replace the primary mirror edge supports. –Upgrade Telescope Control System (TCS). –Evaluate telescope Environmental Control System (ECS). Infrastructure - Integration issues –Clean room –Utilities including glycol, He lines These activities will be undertaken by the CTIO Engineering & Technical Services and Telescope Operations Groups IMPORTANT NOTE: DECam will itself address issues such as maintaining collimation, optical corrector performance, prime focus cage thermal environment. Active focus control, on-instrument alignment sensor.

12. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW12 CTIO DECam Involvement Alistair Walker - CTIO Director Tim Abbott - Blanco Telescope Scientist, DECam Deputy P.M. Chris Smith - Dep. Head of NOAO Data Products Program (DPP) Chris Miller - DPP scientist Ricardo Schmidt, Peter Moore - EE’s: CCDs and controllers Also - Abi Saha & Todd Boroson from NOAO Tucson; The Tucson Monsoon controller group. Functions - Participate in project activities - management & technical meetings and discussions. Develop specifications, plans in partnership with other collaboration members. (example - use of LabView) Work on specific technical tasks, e.g. CCDs, controllers.

13. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW13 NOAO User Community use of DECam The User community has two routes to DECam data: The DES itself. A project deliverable is that the DES data flows into the NOAO Science Archive (NSA). The NSA will also host reduced data and survey products. NOAO & NCSA are collaborating on developing the NSA, NCSA will provide some of the services for its operation. Access is by a VO-compliant portal. Through observing with DECam on individual projects, via the usual NOAO observing proposal mechanism, whereby time is assigned by competitive review. See http://www.noao.edu/gateway/propinfo.html Some of these projects could be surveys themselves. This requires a pipeline that processes non-DES data, and also flows it into the NSA.

14. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW14 NOAO User Community use of DECam Document - Community Needs for the Dark Energy Camera & Data Management System: The DES requirements are in general very stringent, and there is a high degree of overlap between DES and community requirements. Highlights - DECam should be useable over all optical wavelengths 320-1100 nm (an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector is not a requirement). Filter mechanism design should both minimize filter swaps, and allow such swaps to be carried out safely in a reasonable time. F/8 mirror easily available (flip top end). Observing protocols and operation modes are listed. Data format and metadata requirements specified. DMS must support use both by DES and the community.

15. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW15 The End

16. CD-1 Director's review - FermilabPrepared by ARW16