DUTCH OPEN TELESCOPE Report for NOVA ISC meeting nr. 15 March 11, 2004 R.J. Rutten and F.C.M. Bettonvil Overview -------- - the first (two-channel) DOT tomography paper is out and the first four-channel data sequences are in; - four years "DOT harvesting" exploitation funding was recently guaranteed. However, DOT++ expansion was put on hold and there is no guarantee of exploitation funding from 2008; - "Open-DOT" time allocation was announced internationally, an international TAC was installed, scheduling for 2004 is underway; - the H-alpha optics, mechanics and control electronics are ready for installation; - the advanced speckle processor is nearly ready for installation; - a MOU "Utrecht - Stockholm - Oslo Collaboration in Solar Physics" was signed by Utrecht University, the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Oslo University. Project management ------------------ The DOT team presently consists on the solar physics side of R.J. Rutten (UU), postdocs P. Suetterlin (NWO) and K. Tziotziou (EC-ESMN) and AIO's A.G. de Wijn and J. Leenaarts, and on the technical side of R.H. Hammerschlag (UU) and F.C.M. Bettonvil (NWO via ASTRON), with much support from the Faculty workshop IGF (including A. Jaegers and P.W. Hoogendoorn). Contract technician David van Tricht (SOZOU) left on January 15. In a lengthy procedure and after meetings with the College van Bestuur of Utrecht University and the NOVA directorate, the board of the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of Utrecht University decided recently to give green light for DOT exploitation until 2008, in the form of a financial guarantee covering the minimum budget drafted by the DOT team needed to operate the DOT in the 45-cm aperture six-wavelength tomography configuration which is now getting completed, with the present team plus IGF workshop effort at about the same level as the past years. The DOT++ plans were put on hold awaiting a solar physics professor. The negotiations with the first of the two candidates selected by the search committee for a UU Solar Physics professor were halted during the lengthy deliberations regarding DOT exploitation funding for the coming years, but have been revived after the recent decision on DOT continuation. At present, Utrecht solar physics is formally a separate program of the faculty of Physics and Astronomy with Rutten as interim program leader - but still part of the Sterrekundig Instituut Utrecht. However, this separation has not really been implemented and it is quite likely that the split will soon be undone. A DOT Time Allocation Committee was established, consisting of Rutten (chair), Bettonvil (secretary) and Suetterlin for the DOT team, plus G. Scharmer (director Institute for Solar Physics, Stockholm), O. von der Luehe (director Kiepenheuer Institute fuer Sonnenphysik, Freiburg) and B. Fleck (SOHO mission scientist for ESA, Goddard) as external members. Its task is to peer-review and rank external DOT observing proposals, in particular those competing for OPTICON funding. On scientific grounds preference will be given to co-pointing with the SST (especially SST spectrometry) and TRACE (UV and EUV imaging). The availability of DOT observing time in common-user and/or service mode from medio 2004 was announced internationally. Six proposals were received and are being reviewed, OPTICON-ranked and scheduled at present. A USO-SP proposal for close collaboration with the SST group of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and the solar physics group at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics of Oslo University was drafted and led to a Memorandum of Understanding signed in the meantime by Utrecht University, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Oslo university. DOT-related funding proposals were submitted to: - Faculty of Physics of Astronomy of Utrecht University, asking DOT exploitation funding for "Five years DOT harvesting". This has been granted till the end of 2007 (3.5 years effectively); - NOVA's FP5 Marie Curie Training program, for a 10-month graduate traineeship (granted in principle); - NWO Open Competition, asking support for one OIO and one academic engineer; - EC Marie Curie EST program, asking 6 graduate students and 24 short-term traineeships for a "USO Graduate School in Solar Physics" encompassing the three USO-SP groups, to be equally split; - EC Marie Curie EIT program, asking a two-year postdoc. The OPTICON Access program has started. The DOT partners for up to 2 weeks of time allocation worth up to 30 kEuro per year, representing an important part of our exploitation budget. The technical DOT team partners also in an EC application (FP6 Design Studies program) for European participation in the US Advanced Technology Solar Telescope project, submitted on March 4. It encompasses 14 institutions and companies, 16 work packages, and a 7.2 MEuro budget. Our proposed work packages concern the broad-band imager, heat stop and auxiliary instrument calibration and alignment telescope. The EC-FP5 European Solar Magnetism Network coordinated by Rutten progressed well. Its eight postdoc slots were filled. The first periodic report is available at http://dot.astro.uu.nl and http://esmn.astro.uu.nl. Rutten started preparations for the mid-term review plus an advanced school on solar magnetism coming November in Tatranska Lomnica. The INTAS grant coordinated by Rutten which amongst other activities offers travel support to the Irkutsk builders of the Ba II 4554 filter was granted continuation until medio 2005. Progress since ISC 14 --------------------- The DOT tomography system was described in an A&A paper which appeared in January. As "Paper I" in a "DOT tomography" series it serves as telescope and system description. The first two-channel DOT tomography data, taken in December 2003, were analysed in a second A&A paper which appeared a week ago. (During 2003 three other A&A papers and one ApJ paper resulted from DOT data from the test phase. All DOT papers are accessible at http://dot.astro.uu.nl). Four of the six channels of the tomography system are now working. So far, the laboriousness of the speckle processor on our present computers led to long delays between observation and the completion of the speckle reconstruction, generally a year's backlog of worthwhile data. By the end of the year some high-quality three-wavelength and four-wavelength sequences became available that are now being analysed at Utrecht and also by colleagues elsewhere. These sequences can be inspected as jpeg movies at http://dot.astro.uu.nl. The NWO-funded speckle processor was designed and ordered from Icebear Systems in Munich. It consists of two closed racks with 70 Xeon CPU's (2.4 GHz) with water cooling piped to all chipsets, memory and voltage controllers. The heated water is stored in a tank for heat release during sunset and sunrise, not disturbing the daytime and nighttime seeing. The processor is presently being inspected at the manufacturer and will be displayed at the Hannover CeBiT during March 18-24 prior to shipping to La Palma. The adaptation of the parallel speckle code progresses well. After installation the processor will speed up the speckle processing by two orders of magnitude to one-day turnaround of up to 1.8 Terabyte of speckle data. The optics, mechanical parts and control electronics for the tunable Zeiss Lyot filter for Halpha (fifth channel) are all complete. Assembly and testing is underway. The controlling is through the new PC-104 network designed and built by David van Tricht. PC-104 modules are now used to control all filters in a Linux-based network facilitating maintenance and upgrades by the DOT team itself. The design for the tunable Lyot filter for Ba II 4554 is complete; the optics are in production at ASTRON. Fabrication of the mechanical parts at the Utrecht IGF were delayed due to the DOT funding uncertainty. The recent exploitation guarantee includes a sizable amount of IGF time, but not enough to complete this final channel of the tomography system before next winter. It is scientifically very valuable because it will add high-resolution Dopplergram movie-making, in particular enabling model piston definition in numerical simulation of actual data sets (the Oslo specialism in the USO collaboration). A TUE student, Frans Snik, has started on a feasibility study regarding polarimetry with the Ba II 4554 filter. It is already likely that Stokes-V magnetograms can be obtained with simple liquid-crystal retarders. Such magnetograms will deliver at least the sign of the field in the magnetic structures imaged in the G band, Ca II H, and Halpa, and will so yield the signed magnetic topology. The technical DOT team supervises the construction of the foldaway clamshell dome for the German GREGOR telescope, a copy of the DOT canopy scaled up from 7 to 9 meter diameter. It is being constructed at Delft. The assembly review passed successfully. The dome will be mounted on the telescope building (Tenerife) in June. Major meetings -------------- Madrid, November 4-5 2003, ATST Design Studies proposal kickoff La Laguna, January 21-23 2004, OPTICON Directors Forum DOT campaigns ------------- October 9-15 2003, technical work plus CCI meeting October 28 - November 8 2003, observing, jointly with THEMIS Milestones ---------- Exploitation funding guarantee until 2004, see above. Announcement of Open-DOT time allocation, start of the DOT TAC, initial Open-DOT and OPTICON scheduling, see above. Near-completion of the speckle processor, see above. Various talks and presentations (including many popular-astronomy talks). Critical areas -------------- The smallness of the DOT team and the lack of technical support, especially re software and electronics, remain major critical constraints. The long delay in professor search is now finally remedied by the exploitation budget guarantee. Plans for the coming half year ----------------------------- Installation of the speckle processor. Preparation for the June 8 Venus transit. There is no important science issue to address (we might be able to diagnose the black drop phenomenon at wavelengths at which the Sun shows no limb darkening) but we are gearing up for full participation in the undoubtedly large media attention for this event. Installation of the tunable Halpha filter. Supervision of the GREGOR canopy installation. Continue work on the Ba II 4554 filter. Continue work on telescope automation and safeguarding. Observing plans: - June 8 Venus transit - July 8-15: initial OPTICON campaign - September 8: start of regular observing, possibly already in August. The SST spectrometer is then also planned to operate; combining SST spectrometry with DOT tomography will be high on the priority list. Start of a DOT on-site education program. There are already many more candidate students than we can accommodate in 2004.