DUTCH OPEN TELESCOPE Report for NOVA ISC meeting nr. 20 September 5 2006 R.J. Rutten and F.C.M. Bettonvil DOT website: http://dot.astro.uu.nl 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 3000 manhours/year (but see below) of IGF (DepNS workshop) effort, and up to 12 kEuro/year for on-site student training. Additional funding comes from the EC for observing (OPTICON) and science exploitation (Marie Curie ESMN network, Marie Curie USO-SP graduate school). 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). R.J. Rutten's (mandatory formal retirement next May) successor as UU solar physicist has been selected; the contract is to be concluded soon. G. Sliepen (UU graduate in informatics) and A.P.L. Jaegers (engineer) have been hired for four years on STW funding to work on DOT-related technology, in particular DOT-type foldaway canopies. C.U. Keller and AIO's A.G. de Wijn, J. Leenaarts and F. Snik have partial DOT interest. A.G. de Wijn's PhD thesis is complete; he will continue similar work as postdoc at HAO in Boulder. Postdoc J. Koza (EC/MC-EIF funding) spends two years at Utrecht on DOT-oriented research. Postdoc A. Berlicki (EC/RTN ESMN funding) currently spends two months with the DOT team. Two EC/MC-EST-funded graduate students have started 6-month traineeships that may develop into full PhD projects. Another 6-month trainee arrives in November. The remaining open slots are advertised. A major international political advance is the signing of a Europe-wide Memorandum to "initiate a legally established organisation, European Association for Solar telescopes, EAST, with the goal to ensure access of European solar astronomers to world-class observing facilities. In order to achieve this goal, EAST shall - develop, construct and operate a next-generation large-aperture European Solar Telescope (EST) in the Canaries, - coordinate the operation an scientific use of optical solar facilities in Europe, - coordinate and facilitate efforts of its members to participate in other solar facilities such as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, - facilitate access to these solar facilities also for European solar physicists who are not EAST members and encourage their participation in EAST." It is likely that DOT technology and possibly parts of the DOT itself will play a valuable role in the EST development. Progress since ISC 19 --------------------- We have already run seven successful international campaigns this year. Both the DOT and the DOT Speckle Processor performed very well. Three more, possibly four, campaigns follow this autumn. Three more students came to the DOT in early summer; two more are there at present, and three or more USO trainees will come to a USO school on La Palma later in September - bringing the DOT student total to 22. DOT technology, including the tower and the folding canopy, attracts increasing outside interest, also in connection with Antarctic astronomy projects. The completion and installation of the large Lyot filter from Irkutsk for BaII 4554 met mishaps (in particular a defunct temperature controller) but is now essentially complete. In a very intensive campaign led by PhD student F. Snik the filter was tested for polarimetry at the SST. Satisfactory magnetograms were obtained (though in bad seeing) but it appears that the filter transmission is discrepantly low for yet unidentified reasons. The elaborate calibration unit for polarimetry with this filter in the DOT was completed and shipped to La Palma. In an August technical campaign DOT mechanic P. Hoogendoorn and technical trainees A. Kool and Th. Simons renewed the safeguarding against falling icycles in the DOT tower. For the first time, the DOT optics including the primary mirror were cleaned extensively. The DOT camera control software was finally completed by IGF and then handed over, including the source codes. From now on, the DOT team will handle data acquisition software maintenance and improvement itself. Meetings since ISC 19 --------------------- - Nederlandse Astronomenconferentie: Rutten and many DOT students - Mallorca workshop on waves in the solar atmosphere: Rutten - SPIE Orlando: Hammerschlag, Bettonvil, Keller, Snik Milestones ---------- Two new DOT papers appeared in A&A and ApJ (under "DOT publications" at http://dot.astro.uu.nl). 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 maintenance and improvement thus remain in strong competition. In particular, the lack of an engineer devoted to DOT data acquisition remains a permanent drawback. This year the DOT was allocated only 1600 manhours of IGF workshop effort. This is a major drawback in improving the DOT instrumentation. It again delays the DOT control safeguarding and automation that would enable DOT operation by others than the trio above, as well as much-needed auxiliary instrumentation such as an optics alignment unit. 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 to be launched within weeks from now. Aperture increase is a technologicaly viable venue to maintain the DOT's role as leading high-resolution tomographic movie maker while partnership in building an EST offers wider vistas including AO spectropolarimetry. Plans for the coming half year ----------------------------- More observing campaigns in 2006. Scheduling the 2007 season (roughly May - November) in early February after the January 31 proposal deadline. The CCI/ITP deadline is past; one proposal has been selected by the DOT TAC (external members: G. Scharmer, O. von der Luehe, B. Fleck). Completion of the 2006 student-to-the-DOT program. Meetings: - IASS/APCS Beijing: Bettonvil - Coimbra workshop on the solar chromosphere: Rutten, Hammerschlag, de Wijn, Leenaarts, Koza, Berlicki. Test polarimetry and calibration measurements of the Ba II 4554 filter on the DOT (where it is mounted now) and on a local laboratory spectrometer to diagnose the improvement approach. Safeguarding and automation of the DOT operation. Further DOT-future deliberations including potential international partnerships. Specific request for extra funding ---------------------------------- The open DOT data policy is fruitful in generating increasing science done externally on DOT data. However, the DOT database at ftp://dotdb.phys.uu.nl and its graphical index at http://dotdb.phys.uu.nl/DOT/ constitute only a simple FTP server and could and should be much improved as well as merged into the worldwide Virtual Solar Observatory at http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/vso/. In addition, it is very desirable to expand traditional-type serving (date, solar location, solar active region, diagnostic) with search capability by class of object (for example sunspots, granules, plage, spicules, filaments) and characteristic issue (for example umbral dots, umbral flashes, penumbral waves, lightbridge evolution, spicule connectivity, filament dynamics). This type of serving caters to colleagues seeking example movies both in their work and for presentations. The DOT is very well suited to furnish these. The more dramatic movies and images (as the one on the back cover of the latest issue of the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde) can very well be served to the general public, in outreach with adequate explanation. In the last, heavily oversubscribed, NWO Open Competition the DOT team requested funding, in addition to a postdoc for DOT science, for a software engineer to accomplish the above database upgrades to maximise DOT data spreading both to colleagues and the public. The verdict stipulated that if the proposal has been limited to the latter it would probably have been funded. We now request the ISC to recommend that the cost of such DOT web access improvement, budgeted at 5 kEuro, should be funded by NOVA. The implementation is split into two packages: 1. DOT database enhancement for solar physicists --------------------------------------------- Work package: - construct searchable database server using standard packages - link this server into the worldwide Virtual Solar Observatory - add DOT-specific processing software - merge this software into the SolarSoft IDL library in worldwide use - maintain the server while new DOT data come in We have a suited candidate to do this as parttime job from now until the end of 2007, concentrating first on construction and then on maintenance. Estimated cost 3500 Euro 2. DOT solar phenomena server for solar physicists and the general public ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Work package: - implement a web interface - collect characteristic solar phenomena from the DOT database - add appropriate descriptions - furnish Dutch transcriptions to the NOVA Information Center for insertion in the NOVA outreach "beeldbank" The last three items obviously need solar physics expertise. Our plan is that these will be done by UU students under R.J. Rutten's supervision in so-called Astrovaria. The request to NOVA is to provide funding for the necessary website design, budgeted at 1500 Euro. Timing: start in early 2007, further content addition during the year.