Deepsearch Meeting Notes 1999, September 22

I got here a few minutes late because swapper had my CPU and I was doing a few million things.

We seem to be talking about fog.

Greg is missing the meeting because he's finishing a proposal.


CFHT/Keck Run Plan

We have a fun coming up. Saul says he's been talking to Reynald. The basic plan is that the French team will include Sebastien, Reynald, Pierre, and two Japanese people whose names I didn't get. The idea is that they are going to do the search. They will, ideally, try using two sets of software. They have the TOADs software and, Saul says, scanning software that Sebastien is working on. (They also have the Berkeley software out there, but I personally am dubious that they have the manpower and expertise necessary to really get that working well.)

The search is October 4-5. The spectroscopy nights are 10, 12, and 13. At that point, the VLT comes in to follow one supernovae in depth. (That is service observing, perhaps with some help from Chris Lidman.)

The spectroscopy nights will have the Japanese watching. Sebastien will be there, Reyanld will be there for the first night, and Isobel will be there. There may be some possibility that Brenda will go as well, depending on whether Isobel indicates that she wants any backup.

The aim is to keep things relatively lightweight for the crew here. All that folks still here in Berkeley will be doing is review finding charts produced by the French folks out at CFHT.

We (actually, the French) have three half-nights at CFHT. Hopefully the weather will be good. Apparently Prichard has a half-night on the 10th which may somehow be able to be weaseled as a backup night. Apparently he's interested in doing a backwards search looking for z=0.5 supernovae.

Finally, if we don't have enough good candidats, the backup plan for the Keck is to get deep references images and spectra for Albinoni. (This is something we really want anyway.) The backup backup plan is to do spectroscopy of hosts from way the heck back when.

Rob asks Sebastien for a tape of the data. Sebastien says he will do that or scp the data over to Berkeley.

Sebastien talks about how they will work. He says that they use the TOADs software at CFHT. One person will make sure that the flatfielding is going well, and the next day they will run the subtractions. (It sounds like there's some doubt about which half of which nights they have.) Sebastien says he is not sure that they will have time to execute both sets of software. He says that they will try the Berkeley software if after a day or two they aren't able to get the French software to work.

Saul says that Alex Kim said that their computers are up to the task. (I will hold my breath.) Saul does question whether the French will get kicked off because somebody else wants to use the machine. Sebastien says that once they are down in Waimea, they will have access to another more powerful computer. (They're observing from the mountain.) "I think Reynald has dealt with all this sort of thing," Sebastien says.