From: Rene Rutten (rgmr@ing.iac.es)
Date: Thu Feb 01 2007 - 00:47:11 PST
ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
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Position Statement
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The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (the 4.2-m William Herschel
Telescope, WHT, and 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope, INT) continues
to serve the scientific community every night of the year,
despite a dramatic reduction in funding. The ING telescopes
continue to be in high demand though the European astronomical
community has access to a powerful arsenal of very large telescopes.
But clearly the changing environment does not leave the observatory
unaffected. This brief paper summarizes ING's position and its view
of how it expects to continue to deliver a high-quality service to
the astronomical community from one of the best observing sites in
the world.
ING currently receives its funding from the UK Particle Physics and
Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the Netherlands Organization
for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Spanish Instituto de
Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). PPARC has indicated its intention to
significantly reduce funding from 2009 onwards. To safeguard the
scientific future of the ING a new balance of financial
contributions between the partners in ING is being discussed, while
new interested parties are on the horizon. The funding agencies
have expressed their commitment to work towards a continuing healthy
future for the observatory.
In future years ING's telescopes should be seen in a wider, European
context. Coordination of national facilities will be a central theme
for European astronomy in years to come. ING is playing an active
role in this, and is seeking to build bridges to other telescope
groups at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Finding common
areas of interest and avoiding duplication will allow telescopes to
work more cost effectively while still retaining the variety of
instrument capability that the community demands.
The future scientific impact of the telescopes depends critically on
the available instrumentation. Current instrumentation on the WHT
caters well for a wide range of scientific projects. University-built,
visiting instruments are expected to remain of scientific importance
and are a uniquely attractive feature of the WHT. Ongoing instrument
development activities focus on the completion of the laser guide
star (LGS) upgrade to the adaptive optics (AO) system. This particular
development activity is technically demanding, but the potential
scientific reward is great: high-resolution IR imaging and optical
integral-field spectroscopy over nearly the whole sky.
Building on ING's experience and infrastructure in the field of
adaptive optics and laser guide stars, and in collaboration with a
large number of European institutes, ING is seeking European funding
for the WHT to become an AO/LGS-technology test bed facility for
future extremely large telescopes.
Looking towards the future, there are exciting new possibilities on
the horizon. ING is negotiating the deployment of an extremely stable
high-resolution spectrograph on the WHT. The prime objective of this
instrument is in the hot-topic area of exo-planet searches, but the
instrument will be available for other uses as well. This would
satisfy a strong interest in our user community in high-resolution
spectroscopy. Furthermore, to exploit the best observing conditions,
expansion of service and queue-scheduled observing is anticipated,
as far as future budget constraints will allow.
A number of smaller-scale but scientifically rewarding instrument
developments are also in-hand. These include upgrades of CCDs,
development of high-speed spectroscopic CCD modes, and the
construction of an auxiliary port imaging camera, ACAM, that will
allow high-quality imaging over a much wider field of view than
currently available at the Cassegrain focus of the WHT. As ACAM will
be virtually always available it will be a very useful tool for fast
follow-up of transient sources or events, an activity that currently
delivers an important science return.
Looking further ahead, ING plans to develop a new common-user
instrument for the WHT that would fulfill the science requirements
for future years. Also a new scientific role for the INT needs to
be defined. We invite members of the community who are interested
in working with us on the scientific direction and definition of a
new instruments to contact us.
The Isaac Newton Group of telescopes has shown in past years its
resilience and ability to adapt to new challenges. In coming years
we will continue to strive to give the best possible service to the
community.
31 January 2007
Rene Rutten
Director, ING
===================================
Dr Rene G.M. Rutten, Director,
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes
Apartado de Correos 321
E-38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma
SPAIN
Tel office: +34 922 425421
Tel switchboard: +34 922 425410
Fax central: +34 922 425401
Email: rgmr@ing.iac.es
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Feb 01 2007 - 03:03:52 PST