DUTCH OPEN TELESCOPE Report for NOVA ISC meeting nr. 19 March 2 2006 R.J. Rutten and F.C.M. Bettonvil Project management ------------------ The DOT efforts are part of the Sterrekundig Instituut Utrecht (SIU) directed by N. Langer as program leader Astronomy. The SIU is part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy (DepNS) of Utrecht University (UU), formerly the Faculteit Natuur- en Sterrenkunde, now part of the collective UU Faculteit Betawetenschappen. The DOT efforts are funded until 2008 through a guarantee of the Faculteit/Departement Natuur- en Sterrenkunde which includes support from NOVA. This funding covers the salaries of Bettonvil and Suetterlin, 110 kEuro/year for DOT exploitation including travel, up to 225 kEuro/year of IGF (DepNS workshop) effort, and up to 12 kEuro/year for on-site student training. Some extra income comes from OPTICON and NASA for international DOT observing. The DOT core team consists of R.J. Rutten (DOT scientist), R.H. Hammerschlag (DOT builder), F.C.M. Bettonvil (DOT project manager), and P. Suetterlin (DOT observing and image processing). C.U. Keller and AIO's A.G. de Wijn, J. Leenaarts and F. Snik have partial DOT interest. Postdoc J. Koza (EC/MC-EIF funding) spends two years at Utrecht on DOT-oriented research. Another EC fellowship is under EC consideration. EC/MC-EST-funded PhD student positions in the Utrecht-Stockholm-Oslo graduate school in solar physics (two for Utrecht) have been advertised with February 28 as first-stage deadline; applicant reviewing has started. R.J. Rutten's NOVA overlap position has been advertised with satisfactory response. Progress since ISC 18 --------------------- Observing 2005: eight additional campaigns took place during the remainder of 2005. Unfortunately, the La Palma weather was unusually bad during much of the time. On the best days (early October) high-quality limb and near-limb image sequences concentrating on Halpha spicules were obtained. These are under analysis now. The builders of the Irkutsk Lyot filter for Ba II 4554 and H-beta, V. Skomorovsky, G. Domichev, and G. Kushtal came three weeks to La Palma on INTAS and other funding for further work on their extraordinary filter. The effort included building a spectrograph for transmission profile calibration and complete inventory of the filter characteristics. The filter will be used both on the DOT and on the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) the coming summer, at the latter for polarimetry tests in which the SST's larger photon flux is essential. Six more students came two weeks each to the DOT for intensive on-the-spot solar physics training, bringing the 2005 total to ten. A new, spacious optics lab has been instated in the cellar of the Caroline Bleeker IGF building. The Boerhaave Museum exhibition "De Zon: een eeuwig raadsel" harboured a large complement of DOT models and displays. Meetings since ISC 18 --------------------- - OPTICON director's meeting, IAP Paris, Sep 14-15: Bettonvil - CCI meeting, CALP La Palma, Oct 7: Bettonvil - OSC (operations subcommittee) meeting, CALP La Palma, Oct 6: Bettonvil Critical areas -------------- The DOT is run on a very tight budget. The major risk in the DOT observing remains lack of manpower. It requires the full attention of Hammerschlag, Bettonvil and Suetterlin, but so do hardware and software maintenance and upgrading. Observing and technical improvement thus remain in strong competition. In particular, the lack of a systems engineer devoted to DOT data acquisition is a large permanent drawback. On the analysis side there is much more science to be gotten out of DOT data than our small team can handle. External usage of the DOT database (all DOT data are public) increases, but we lack the manpower to create the virtual-observatory-compliant data serving required for most effective data spreading to the whole community. The DOT future beyond the beginning of 2008 remains uncertain. Of principal essence is the question to what extent the presently unique DOT data products will be supplied by the equal-aperture Solar-B mission, launch now planned for September 2006. Aperture increase is an obvious and technologicaly viable venue to maintain the DOT's worldwide uniqueness as high-resolution tomographic movie maker. Plans for the coming half year ------------------------------ Observing: the schedule for 2006 is now available at the DOT website (http://dot.astro.uu.nl). Eleven international multi-telescope campaigns were selected after the 31 January proposal deadline and fill much of the coming year, together with UU campaigns and technical time. This year the DOT observing season starts already in March. DOT maintenance: optics cleaning and alignment. Design and fabrication of an alignment light source. Further tests and debugging of IGF's new data acquisition software. Re-installation of the Irkutsk Ba II 4554 filter after throughput optimisation, and polarimetry tests with it mounted at the Swedish telescope. Installation and usage of the polarimetry calibration unit. Design and construction of a new temperature controller for the Ba II 4554 Lyot filter. Continuation of the "Students-to-the-DOT education program. Start of on-site Utrecht-Stockholm-Oslo PhD student training.