LBT2020 A six-year development plan for LBTO 2014-2019 - LBTO 2014 Users' Meeting
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LBT2020
A six-year development plan for LBTO [2014-2019]
CV - 3/19/2014 9:46 PM
Version history Distribution
Draft 1.0 LBTO Management and Support Astronomers for comments (w/o budget) - 9/9/2013 + AF
Draft 1.1 id + Board - 9/17/2013
Draft 1.2 LBTO Management and Support Astronomers + STC + Board - 10/1/2013
Draft 1.3 Unfinished update for private use only
Draft 2.0 Users’ Meeting version
Table of Contents
Preamble ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
1. The context ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Time travel ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Old and young ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Sooner or later, we must pay … ................................................................................................................ 6
2. Setting the goals.................................................................................................................................... 7
Efficiency ................................................................................................................................................... 7
State-of-the art instruments ..................................................................................................................... 8
Already in the work ............................................................................................................................... 8
To be proposed… .................................................................................................................................. 9
Excellent science ....................................................................................................................................... 9
3. Laying out the work ............................................................................................................................ 10
Enabling more On-Sky Quality Time ....................................................................................................... 10
More time ........................................................................................................................................... 10
Better quality ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Enabling more Science ............................................................................................................................ 12
Improving the users’ experience with the telescope and the instruments ........................................ 12
Proprietary Time and Data Archival of Processed Data ...................................................................... 13
Observing Modes: moving toward Observatory-run Queue .............................................................. 13
Strengthening the LBT Community ......................................................................................................... 14
Governance ............................................................................................................................................. 14
4. Funding the plan ................................................................................................................................. 15
Staffing .................................................................................................................................................... 15
Regular staff ........................................................................................................................................ 15
Other labor costs................................................................................................................................. 15
Operations .............................................................................................................................................. 15
New projects ........................................................................................................................................... 16
Risk mitigation expenses......................................................................................................................... 16
Budget overview ..................................................................................................................................... 16
5. Metrics ................................................................................................................................................ 17
Oversubscription rate ............................................................................................................................. 17
Number of publications .......................................................................................................................... 17
LBT2020 Page |2
Nights available to science ...................................................................................................................... 17
Observing time lost to technical faults and shutter open time .............................................................. 18
So far… ................................................................................................................................................ 18
Instruments ......................................................................................................................................... 18
Adaptive secondary mirrors, AO and GLAO ........................................................................................ 19
What about the telescope and the enclosure? .................................................................................. 19
Observation overheads ........................................................................................................................... 20
Q efficiency ............................................................................................................................................. 20
LBTO as a work place .............................................................................................................................. 20
Annex 1 - Enhancing science productivity: archive and pipelines .............................................................. 21
Annex 2 - Moving to Q ................................................................................................................................ 23
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 23
The main principles of Q ......................................................................................................................... 23
What we should know about the observatory ....................................................................................... 24
Phase 2 .................................................................................................................................................... 24
Q observing tools .................................................................................................................................... 24
A schedule for Q implementation? ......................................................................................................... 25
Annex 3 - 2014 call for proposals for upgrades and new instruments ....................................................... 26
Annex 4 - Summary of the proposals for upgrades and new instruments ................................................. 29
iFUN@LBT (Integral Field Unit with NICS at LBT) - a short track, inexpensive, near-IR IFU to be coupled with
FLAO ....................................................................................................................................................................29
SHARK (System for coronagraphy with High order Adaptive optics from R to K band) ......................................30
LBC-2 (LBC upgrade)............................................................................................................................................30
iLocater - The World's First Diffraction-Limited Doppler Spectrometer .............................................................31
LIVE - The LBT Interferometer Visible Extension ................................................................................................32
Upgrading LMIRcam ............................................................................................................................................33
Technology Development for Flexible LBT Multi-object Multi-instrument Spectroscopy ..................................33
LBT-IFTS A deployable wide-field Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrograph for LBT ........................................34
LUCIPOL - Diffraction limited polarimetry and spectropolarimetry with LUCI@LBT ..........................................35
SOUL - Single conjugated adaptive Optics Upgrade for LBT ...............................................................................35
ARGOS Upgrade - the Path to all Sky Visible Wavelength Interferometry .........................................................36
LBT2020 Page |3Preamble LBT2020, in its current draft state, is evolving from its first version passed around to the LBTO management in early September 2013 to a plan nourished of the comments, suggestions and contributions from many beyond LBTO itself, including SAC and Board at their October 2013 meetings or the LBT partner communities. The current version is prepared for the LBTO Users’ Meeting (UM) to be held in March 2014, which will be an opportunity to discuss some strategic decisions, like the future of the observatory observing modes, the upgrades of the current instrumentation, and the preparation of its next generation instruments. The next version of the plan will take into account the conclusions of the Users’ Meeting as well as the recommendations of the SAC meeting which will follow the UM. It will be presented to the LBT Partners at the LBTC Board in April 2014. LBTO is an amazing one-of-a-kind observatory, for which were developed unique concepts on unchartered territories in the midst of difficult circumstances. It is now on the verge of moving to full operation, with the last of its facility instruments likely to be offered to its users by early 2015. With first-class adaptive secondary mirrors, a unique interferometer to produce its first science in 2014/2015, a laser-based ground layer adaptive optics system to be fully operational in 2016, exciting upgrades and fast-track new instruments proposed in the framework of the 2014 call, LBTO should find sooner than later its place among the best observatories of the world. LBT2020 is designed as an observatory development framework, which will contribute to make this bright future a reality and help the partners in their own strategic planning. LBT2020’s “final” version will not be written in stone. LBT2020 will continue to evolve over the years as the observatory adapts to the changes in the communities it serves and to the new developments both in science and in instrumentation these coming years will offer. LBTO staff has already made tremendous progress over the past decade, overcoming some of the flows inherent to a high-tech and very complex prototype. More progress will still be made and new ideas will emerge to make the observatory even better. In some ways, LBTO could make the credo of UA’s new development plan its own: “We have never settled. Never will. Because we’re thinkers and doers, always moving forward, upward.” LBT2020 Page |4
1. The context
Time travel
March 1981 - ESO Conf. on Scientific Importance of High Angular
Resolution at infrared and optical wavelengths Honeycomb mirrors of
borosilicate glass (J. R. P. Angel ; J. M. Hill)
Nov 1983 - SPIE Advanced Technology Optical
Telescopes II Binocular telescope one of the three
elements of an interferometric versatile array (N. J. Woolf;
J. R. P. Angel ; D. W. McCarthy, Jr.)
Jun 1987 - SPIE Structural Mechanics of Optical Systems II Structural Innovations
In The Columbus Project: An 11.3 Meter Optical Telescope (W. B. Davison)
../.. 1996 - OK for construction on Mt Graham - Clearing the site 1997 - Pier and ring wall erected
2000 - Enclosure completed 2003 - SX-M1 at the observatory
Oct 27, 2005 - First light - “This milestone marks the dawn of a new era in
observing the Universe.“ - “This has been a long and challenging process and would
not have been possible without the support of an outstanding team of partner
institutions. From construction of our unique telescope structure to the
implementation of massive mirrors, every step has involved great minds using
cutting-edge technology. The remarkable success of the LBT is a tribute to the creative efforts of our team
members.”
Mar 6, 2008 - First binocular light “The First Binocular Light images offer a glimpse
into the LBT’s immeasurable potential.” - “With this latest milestone, the LBT will provide
new and more powerful views of deep space” - “In addition to financial commitments,
each partner’s unique expertise ensures this will be the most advanced telescope in the
world.”
Jun 15, 2010 - First adaptive optics images “This is an incredibly exciting
time as this new adaptive optics system allows us to achieve our potential as the
world’s most powerful optical telescope” - “Imagine the potential when we have
adaptive optics on both of LBT's giant eyes"
Mar 15, 2012 - Release of first AO papers (from fall 2011 data) “The LBT is
the first in the new generation of extraordinary large ground-based telescopes
that uses advanced adaptive secondary mirrors to see more clearly than ever
before.” - “We expect these to be the first of many amazing new discoveries as
we are now able to observe in unique detail the formation of stars and their systems of planets.”
LBT2020 Page |5Old and young Today’s LBTO has a long history we have barely touched through this high-speed time travel. We highlighted some of the important dates, which marked the evolution of the project from early concepts in key technologies like large honeycomb mirrors or a binocular telescope to the last steps which made the project transform into an observatory. The first designs of what became the LBT were drawn more than 25 years ago, at a time when its observing modes, a mix of versatility and focus on interferometry, were also conceptually defined. LBTO is therefore both “old” and very young. It is already old as its construction started more than 15 years ago. It is still young because, in spite of claiming first light in 2005, the first instrument beyond the LBCs, LUCI1, was only made available in early 2010, followed by MODS1 in 2011. In spite of amazingly good Adaptive Optics (AO) capabilities, the observatory is still an infant on the AO science side by lack of facility instruments able to work in diffraction limited mode. Thanks to a borrowed PISCES instrument and to LBTI-LMIRCam, LBTO is not completely absent from the AO science scene. LBTO is also young as it is still going through heavy commissioning of first generation facility instruments: LUCI2 will hopefully be offered for general use in diffraction-limited in 2015A and MODS2 will hopefully be commissioned before the end of 2014. It means that the telescope has been only used in binocular mode for wide-field imaging with the LBCs since 2008, and more recently by LBTI. So, eight years after monocular first light, the observatory is far to work at its full potential with its facility instruments. Sooner or later, we must pay … We all know the impossible triangle of projects. Trying to go fast and cheap at the same time rarely ends up with a good product and, more often than not, is not as fast as planned anyway. LBT was supposed to be cheap and to move fast. Corners were cut, staff was very small for a telescope project of that magnitude. The LBT is an amazing machine, but it is very complex: more system engineering could have been done in the early days. At the observatory, very few resources were available to closely work with the teams building instruments to give them specifications on the hardware side to minimize the maintenance cost (in manpower or funding), or on the operation side to make users’ life easier. Pipelines were judged too expensive to be included in the instrument delivery. Now, to those who would be tempted to play the blame game, I must state very strongly that, without LBT initially advertised as being low-cost and fast-tracked, there would not be an LBT. Period. Many of the problems LBTO has faced or is still facing are therefore something we have to acknowledge as being part of LBT. Solving them, putting the cut corners back when possible, has been and will still be hard work for quite a few years for the LBTO staff. If we now want LBTO to become, sooner than later, a player in the major league of today’s astronomy, we will have to devote the necessary resources to make it happen. LBT2020 Page |6
2. Setting the goals
The plan proposed in this document outlines the development of the LBT Observatory over the years
2014-2019, which will shape what LBTO will be at the beginning of the 2020s, hence its name: LBT2020.
The fundamental requirement used in the design of LBT2020 is to insure that LBTO will be able to fulfill
the following mission:
“As the forerunner of the ELTs and one of the leading 8-m class telescopes, LBTO must offer, as
efficiently as possible, state-of-the art instruments delivering high-quality data to the users of the
observatory, thus enabling excellent science at the forefront of astronomy”
In such short statements, words are important. Let us develop what the underlined items entail when it
comes to practical goals.
Efficiency
There are many ways to be efficient. Here are some examples will drive the development of the
observatory for the duration of the plan. More details will be given later in this document.
o The observatory must be ready to use as much clear sky night time as possible for science-related
observations. Minimizing the amount of down time due to failures of any nature (facility, telescope
or instruments) and optimizing the use of engineering night time are paramount to efficiency.
o The observatory must not degrade the natural seeing for seeing limited instruments, or the ultimate
capabilities of its Active Optics. Mastering collimation and the thermal environment in the enclosure,
and optimizing the air flow around the telescope are important tasks to complete soon.
o The site of LBT is not as good as the best sites in the world. In the best observing conditions, which
are relatively rare on Mt Graham, the most demanding and highly ranked programs should be
executed first to optimize the scientific return.
o Instruments requiring the best conditions should be ready to use when such conditions occur. Special
attention must be brought to the instruments not designed to be operated in a relatively simple way.
o The final product of LBTO is scientific publications. The observatory, helped by the partnership, must
take measures to encourage the timely use of LBT data in publication as well as offering a good archive
of processed data for a second-hand use of LBT observations.
o Efficiency is also about what the users get from what the Partners spend. The observatory must keep
its operation cost well-contained so that it can fulfill its mission at a cost in balance with the services
it provides. LBT2020 is proposing a rigorous funding scheme offering a clear path to review and
accountability.
o The efficiency of the observatory depends largely on the efficiency of its staff. Management must
keep a good balance between the objectives and the human resources available.
LBT2020 Page |7State-of-the art instruments Instruments are used by the communities the observatory is serving. It is therefore up to the communities to voice their needs. Does it mean that the observatory should just wait for the users to move forward? Certainly not! It is up to the observatory, working closely with the Board and the SAC, to spearhead the efforts leading to the evolution of the suite of instruments. What could be the status of the instrumentation by the end of the decade? Already in the work By the end of the plan, the LUCIs and MODSs will have been used only for 4 to 5 years as real pairs of instruments and are likely to still be used for interesting programs. ARGOS will also bring to LUCI the advantage of an improved seeing on its whole field of view. As for the LBCs, which could still have a niche complementing the many ongoing or soon to start large surveys either to go deeper in some areas or to work in specific spectral bands, the future is more uncertain. Without a relatively high commitment in observing time, such contributions could be limited. The future of wide-field instrumentation at the prime foci of LBT is therefore one of the important questions to be studied sooner than later. A couple of proposals are related to this topic and will be presented at the Users’ Meeting. PEPSI will bring some unique capabilities to LBT, in very high resolution spectroscopy and spectro- polarimetry, which should bring good science. In addition, as an instrument which would be available all the time and would accommodate conditions which other instruments could not, it will play an important role in a queue-based observing mode, which LBTO is likely to implement to boost its efficiency. With its adaptive secondaries, which are available for every night of observing, LBT is an adaptive optics oriented telescope with amazing capabilities, though the technology is young and still to be mastered on the long term. AO should therefore be one of the drivers of the instruments either in development or still to be studied! Of the initial LBT facility instruments, only the LUCIs will use AO, something which will have to change! One of the drivers for the design of the LBT is interferometry. By 2020, LBTI should have completed its currently ongoing or soon-to-start surveys (HOSTS and LEECH) and will be pursuing new ones. The uniqueness of LBTI as an interferometer as well as the availability of various ports and the likely evolution of its cameras should insure a steady flow of high-impact scientific results. The current dynamics around LEECH, which brings all partners together, augurs well for the future of the collaborations around LBTI. The evolution of LBTI in a facility instrument will obviously be on the table at some point. The future of LINC-NIRVANA (LN) is more uncertain, though the next phase has been clarified with a push toward one-sided MCAO. LN remains one of the only two instruments which use LBT for what makes the LBT the forerunner of the ELTs. For the observatory, going as far possible into the original LN concept, as long as it remains competitive and scientifically relevant, is therefore a key part of its mid-term future. LBT2020 Page |8
To be proposed… Calls for proposals have been made in the recent years for the evolution of the current instrumentation. Nothing concrete really happened though, which in some ways makes sense as some of the facility instruments were still at the fabrication stage. With the last facility instruments entering their commissioning phase, LBTO has issued at the end of October 2013 a call for proposals (see Annex 3) for upgrades of current instruments and capabilities, as well as new instruments, to be developed in a 3- to 4-year time scale maximum, hopefully making good use of the unique capabilities of LBT in high spatial resolution. This call prompted eleven proposals, which are summarized in Annex 4. Funding of small upgrades and seed money for more ambitious projects will be made available if needed for selected proposals. While these developments will have to take place in the coming years to insure a better instrumentation much before the end of the decade, it will be important to start, sooner than later, the process of selecting second generation instruments to replace some of the current instruments at the horizon 2020 to 2025. This is key for the long-term future of the observatory. This will be an important topic for the 2017 Users’ Meeting! LBT2020 does not currently include the funding for such instruments. It will be important for the partners to be proactive in their call for ideas. It would a good idea to have available some money for instrument studies at the horizon 2017. The partners should also start thinking seriously about building a new instrumentation fund. It would allow to issue a call for ideas for Gen2 instrumentation with the assurance that the selected instrument(s) could be partly funded (up to 50%?) by LBTO: a much attractive way to call for ideas than requiring the teams to find the full funding! Excellent science LBTO enables science, but does not choose which programs receive observing time and does not rank them. However, the observatory will make sure, if moving to queue, that the programs ranked first get completed first. Therefore, the role of the time allocation committees (TACs) will be decisive for the quality of the science ultimately produced from LBTO-acquired data. One must recognize that the “quality” of science is both subjective and changing with time. It is also linked to what other communities are doing on other telescopes, as competitiveness as well as complementarity are part of the game. The available suite of instruments obviously plays an important role in the shaping of science done with the telescope. The evolution of the instrumentation will therefore be linked to scientific questions, though most of the new questions which will arise in the coming years will have to be tackled first with whatever instrumentations will be currently available. It is clear that extending the breadth of the observables (new wavelengths, higher spectral or spatial resolution, acquiring larger samples through multiplexing, accessing new parameters…) is always conducive to progress in our understanding of the world. One last point on the impact of observing programs. Many large impact results are currently based on large collaborations and significant investments of observing time. At observatories like LBTO where the biggest partners have only 25% of the telescope time, such an investment can be made only if partners (not necessarily all of them) join forces. The modest LEECH survey is a good example of what could be done on a bigger scale at LBTO. The observatory intends to partake in, and trigger if need be, the reflection which must take place around these issues with the partners, Board and SAC. LBT2020 Page |9
3. Laying out the work
The success of LBT2020 would be very unlikely if the observatory had not made already a huge amount of
work to improve, and at times redesign and rebuild, many of the subsystems originally delivered around
the telescope and its enclosure.
These efforts have often been hampered by the lack of documentation or slowed down by the emergence
of most urgent unexpected issues or changes in priorities. Their extent has been limited by the amount of
resources available and the need to support observations as well as the arrival and commissioning of new
instruments.
Nevertheless, these efforts have already paid off, as the level or reliability of the observatory is reasonable
for a young low-cost and highly complex observatory!
LBT2020 is building on the work already done, which has to be continued, and expands its scope to the
science supporting side of the observatory in an aggressive way so that, at the end of the decade, LBTO is
indeed a smoothly and efficiently operating facility at the forefront of astronomy.
Enabling more On-Sky Quality Time
More time
Providing more observing time means decreasing the amount of time lost to failures. In an observatory,
there are many ways to lose on-sky time: a shutter door stuck at opening time, an instrument warming
up due to an unnoticed cooling system failure, a crane inoperable when needed for a mask exchange with
no possible access for quick repair, the loss of primary mirror actuators without working spares ready…
The list can be so long in a facility as complex as LBT!
Here is a non-exhaustive list of projects, which all contribute in one way or another to minimize the
amount of time lost to failures and will be part of LBT2020:
- Update/revamp the Enclosure Control System, including, but not limited to, mirror ventilation,
secondary cooling loop flow control, stealth exhaust fans, shutters / latch stations, sun avoidance…
Consequences of this work are as diverse as preventing issues with instruments (like the recent DX-AdSec
freezing incident), avoiding potential failures of the shutter doors when it is time to open (or close in bad
weather), or improving data quality (see below).
- Improve the continuous remote sensing of the health of the facility, including the instruments. While
it is already a good step to have systems shutting themselves off when parameters pass over a
predetermined threshold, it is even better to react to gradients and intervene before the threshold is
reached, which often means before we really have a problem.
- Take ownership of AO and the facility instruments (and possibly the strategic or PI ones if they
become facility instruments). AO and the instruments are currently, for the most part, maintained by the
teams which built them. While it was a good idea when staff was mainly dedicated to the immense task
to make the rest of the observatory work, it is not a good solution on the long term for a couple of reasons.
LBT2020 P a g e | 10The first is that we need on-site knowledge to be able to solve the problems in a timely manner, to adapt
the instruments to changes in the observatory environment, and to upgrade them if needed. The second
is that the teams will dissolve in the midst of novel projects to come or individuals will retire without
passing their knowledge to others. The extent of this instrument handover (including AO) will have to be
decided after a careful cost/benefits analysis: some subsystems of the current facility instruments are
black boxes in which digging could quickly become a manpower sinking hole. While it could be seen as
short term task, it will be a real achievement for LBTO to complete this handover by the end of the decade.
- Work on various issues whose consequences would mean a significant shutdown period. Slowing
down the wear of the enclosure track, refurbishing the aluminizing system (its control system is no longer
maintainable… Didn’t we say that LBT was old?), protecting the roof and the auxiliary control room from
ice falls are some of the tasks to be tackled sooner than later.
- Continue to develop the current Maintenance Plan, which has proven very successful over the past
years. It will include a better monitoring of the spares, not only for facility equipment, but for instruments.
- Last, but not least, work on solving various safety issues which have been lingering for too long. A
major accident at the observatory would be devastating in many respects, not just because we would lose
observing time!
- And no… the mirror covers are not forgotten! They will be in the program plan from 2015 on.
Better quality
Mount Graham is not as good a site as Paranal or Mauna Kea. While nothing can be done about the site
itself, LBTO must insure that it is not degrading the natural seeing, either from poor performances of the
telescope collimation active control, or from an improper control of the thermal environment of the
enclosure with respect to the outside environment. Other issues with the telescope and its subsystems
come also in the way of the best possible performances of the instruments.
Here is another non-exhaustive list of projects, some short term and others longer term, which contribute
to improve as much as possible the delivered image quality of the telescope, including in AO mode.
- Improve the collimation control. This is a long term action already started, with a first phase likely to
be completed in 2014 and helping with LBC observations. This new control will eventually enable the
demanding interferometric observations ultimately planned for a full implementation of LINC-NIRVANA.
- Mitigate the oil dripping issues which prevent an adequate use of the stealth exhaust fans, or the
opening of the vent doors when the wind is high.
- Clean up the thermal environment in the enclosure of the enclosure and automate the use of
ventilation and doors in an dynamic way to optimize the environment in the enclosure with respect to the
environment outside and minimize any “dome seeing” effect.
LBT2020 P a g e | 11- Vibrations will eventually be a limitation for the performances of the interferometers. Their
mitigation is a long term undertaking, helped by the information given by OVMS (Optical path difference
and Vibration Monitoring System) and its sensors, whose location will have to be optimized.
- Improve our way of monitoring the seeing at the telescope, hopefully implementing a combination
of DIMM and MASS.
- Monitor the sky transparency in the direction of the telescope pointing, and potentially implement
a whole-sky visible and IR equipment to monitor the cloud coverage and its evolution, another good tool
especially for Q.
- Predicting the seeing will be a real plus, especially with more instruments able to benefit from AO
observations, starting with LUCI. It will be also helpful for LBTI and LN runs, and a real plus when working
in Q (see Q efficiency).
Enabling more Science
In parallel with the optimization of the on-sky time and the potential quality of the observations, the
observatory can take a few steps to actually enable more science.
As a first step, we must ease the work of the observers by providing better tools to prepare their
observations and interact with the instruments and the telescope during observing. We then incite PIs to
use their data faster and eventually open data to users worldwide in a pre-processed form to increase
their scientific use. As a last step, we must optimize the observations so that priority programs are
executed first under the conditions they require. The best way to reach this goal will be to move to
Observatory-run Queue.
Improving the users’ experience with the telescope and the instruments
The interaction between users and the observatory should start early on, at the time the proposals are
examined by the TACs. Optimizing the use of the telescope will start with a check by LBTO astronomers
that the submitted proposals are technically sound. Currently, this step is almost non-existent. In addition
to catching mistakes, this step gives the observatory a chance to know which kind of programs are
proposed, a good way to better support the observations and an invaluable information when reflecting
on the evolution of the observatory, its instrumentation and the services it provides.
Observation preparation has to be made as easy as possible. A preparation tool will have to be made
available allowing users to efficiently prepare binocular observing blocks for programs going beyond the
use of a pair of identical instruments. It will be an early product of the Q development if we move to Q.
During observations, observers must be helped by automating tasks such as MOS acquisitions on both
LUCI and MODS. User interfaces have to be improved to make instrument use more intuitive and user
friendly. Near real-time data quality assessment tools will also be provided when appropriate so that
observers can better react to the observing conditions.
LBT2020 P a g e | 12With the information on observing programs available at the observatory, LBTO will follow-up with PIs on what happens with the data once observations are done. It will give the observatory a chance to get direct feedback on the quality of the data and on some of the tools available at the time of the observations, an important information to be used to steer further improvements. Proprietary Time and Data Archival of Processed Data LBTO has no overall policy on the proprietary time of data taken at the observatory. Each partner has its own, going from one year to infinity. To encourage a timely use of the data by the PIs, we propose to define a default proprietary time of one year. PIs will be able to request a longer period, which their TAC or Agency will grant if they are convinced by the justification given. Facility instruments were delivered without pipelines. Only raw data are archived, and those with a defined proprietary time are therefore available to anyone when the proprietary period is over. Unfortunately, archived raw data are nowadays rarely used. The observatory will therefore work with the community to install standard reduction pipelines and have these preprocessed data archived together with the raw data. Both will then be available at the end of the proprietary period. These two actions are further described in Annex 1. Observing Modes: moving toward Observatory-run Queue Moving away from the widely used model of astronomers going to the telescope to conduct their observations is a trend that is being adopted by an increasing number of facilities. Instead of degrading the data, staff-made observations are actually overall providing better results, as they use the conditions best suited to each program and are done by well-trained observers. In this observing mode, which we will call Q in this document as a short for Queued Service Observing, all observing blocks (OBs) from all programs which received time for an observing period (generally a semester) are piled up in a queue and observed by staff observers at the right time while ensuring that all partners receive a fair share of the conditions they required for the highest ranked programs. Q is particularly well suited to observatories which, like LBTO, are serving a large and diverse community. Q is not coming at no cost… As the saying goes, “no pain, no gain”. However, if Q means a few more people working at the observatory, it also means a much better use of the telescope: a huge saving if one thinks about the cost of a single night. Q will not come very fast either. It will require a clear project at LBTO merging resources from the science and software groups. Fortunately, a few staff members have been closely involved in queue operations in other observatories (UKIRT, Gemini, CFHT). The intent is not to reinvent the wheel, but to use the concepts, and if possible some of the implementations, which have already proven their worth. A phased development of Q should bring improvements in the observing process even in the current observing mode of partner runs. LBT2020 P a g e | 13
More details on Q operations at LBTO can be found in Annex 2.
Strengthening the LBT Community
As already mentioned a few times in this presentation, the observatory will benefit from a strong LBT
community fostering collaborations, joint observing programs, and instrument projects.
- While there are limited resources in observing time as seen from each partner, crossing the
boundaries between partners enable large programs and provide LBTO with a greater visibility: a plus at
a time when each partner has to demonstrate to funding agencies the impact of the observatory.
- While there are limited resources to develop new instruments, raising interest for a new project and
collaborating on its realization throughout the partnership will help convince the funding agencies to
invest in the observatory.
Working more closely with the users, engaging the communities through forums and regular users’
meetings, maintaining close direct contacts with PIs, using web and social media to keep all those involved
in LBT aware of the status of the observatory and the LBT-related projects, strengthening the relationship
between SAC and the observatory, are some of the actions to be taken. Some have already started and
will be developed over the coming years.
This 2014 Users’ Meeting is obviously an important step in this process!
Governance
At the Board level, the role of the observatory director with respect to the other main actors (Chair of the
Board and President) is being redefined, bringing clarity and efficiency in the governance of the
observatory.
A strong interaction between the SAC and the observatory will be very important in the coming years. The
development of a charge for the SAC and its relationship to the Board and the observatory director is
therefore important. SAC members will have to act as much as possible as key contacts with the
community they represent.
LBT2020 P a g e | 144. Funding the plan Staffing Regular staff The observatory is leaving its heavy construction period and moving at the same time into operations. This is a time of heavy demands on both sides with relatively limited resources. One can hope that the situation will improve as some of the major ongoing or planned engineering projects reach completion, as well as first generation instrument commissioning comes to an end. However, the hand-over of the pairs of MODS and LUCI will be a heavy task which will be phased over most of the duration of the LBT2020 plan. After the hiring of an IT person for the mountain budgeted for 2014, the choice made for now is to maintain the size of our engineering staff as is, using the usual turn over to reshape the profile of the groups and their members as needed. To face pressing issues, we will not hesitate to seek temporary help in complement to our regular staff. With ARGOS moving into full operation at some point in 2016, one more person will also be hired toward the end of 2015, with a profile still to be determined when we have a better grasp of the skills needed (beyond the coordination of the spotters, who could eventually not be needed anymore). On the science operations side, our small group of astronomers will have to increase in size as more telescope time will be devoted to science and more services will be provided to the users. We are hiring one more astronomer for 2014 and will likely reorganizing the current “Science Operations” group to better fit the tasks ahead. Moving to Q means hiring three queue observers over the year preceding the first Q-mode semester. Providing in-house coordination around the interferometer and to AO-based science in general is now accomplished through the hiring of a dedicated scientist. The plan does not include at this early stage the move of LBTI or LN from strategic instrument to facility instrument. The coming years should bring some important guidelines and options on the matter. Other labor costs In addition to the temporary help mentioned earlier and the recurrent labor costs for AO support shared with Steward Observatory, the observatory will have to pay for the plane spotters needed for the operation of ARGOS, though the prospect of using unmanned devices seems to become more realistic on a time scale of a few years. Spotters will be hired locally in Safford through the Discovery Park of the East Arizona College. The numbers of nights for which we intend to make ARGOS available will depend on the demand on the science side. Q mode will optimize its use but could mean a relatively high number of ARGOS-ready nights, even if the number of propagation nights will actually be lower. Operations Outside of the LBCs, which are relatively simple instruments, we are going to double the number of facility instruments with the arrival of LUCI2 and MODS2. Once commissioned, both LUCIs and MODSs will be LBT2020 P a g e | 15
either supported through agreements with the instrument teams or, more likely, maintained by the LBTO staff. The handover will take time. It is therefore expected that the expertise of the teams will still be required, perhaps at a cost, as is the case for LBC currently. This added cost will have to be factored in starting in 2015 and will hopefully ramp down as we move toward the end of the decade. New projects We intend to use part of the Contingency/Reserve Fund to fund in-house development projects. The Fund could also provide seed money for instrument upgrades and/or studies of more ambitious projects. LBTO will be more closely involved in the development of the selected projects (better requirement documents, more participation in reviews, regular follow-up of project progress…). It will ease the handover to LBTO once the project completed. The funding of large projects will obviously require a completely different approach. Either new funding will come from the partners, hopefully with a mechanism which does not require all partners to have funds available at the same time, or agreements will be made with new communities to finance their use of LBTO through their contribution to the funding of a new instrument. More on this is beyond the scope of this document. See the section “To be proposed” earlier in this document. Risk mitigation expenses The observatory is in good shape risk-wise, with many of its key subsystems providing a healthy level of redundancy. We mentioned earlier the enclosure track which will have to be changed, but it will hopefully not be needed before the end of the decade. The main major expense we could envision is the procurement of a hot spare for our adaptive secondary (AdSec) mirrors, or at least of a spare for each of its major components (we have already a spare shell). The reliability of the AdSec’s is still unclear. After all, they have not been used much in AO mode. The recent incident on AdSec-DX showed however that a refurbishment of an AdSec can take a long time. Losing one AdSec for 4 months means only half the efficiency of the AO observations and no interferometry at all. If we average this to a loss of half the observing time for 4 months as far as key science is concerned, we end up with a net loss of more than $2M (2 months of operation). Current estimates of a fully equipped AdSec spare unit (we already have a thin shell) fluctuate in the $1.5M to $3M range, to which we must add the optical and on-sky tests. There is a time-window where those able to build it for us are still available before starting to work on the ELTs. It could be wise to decide to procure such a hot spare, though the price tag can be considered too high at a time of limited budgets. Upgrading the current instruments or building new ones could be considered more appealing. Budget overview The LBT2020 budget document will be updated after the coming Users’ and SAC Meeting and communicated to the Board for its April 2014 meeting. LBT2020 P a g e | 16
5. Metrics
Metrics are an integral part of any development plan. You will find hereafter a non-exhaustive list of
metrics which are all based on objective information, therefore easy to follow to assess the progress made
as the years go by. Some of the goals will seem very hard to reach, but the journey will be at times more
important than the destination…
Oversubscription rate
Often called “pressure”, it is the ration between the number of hours of observing time requested and
the hours finally allocated. This number will depend on the partners. It will be sometime difficult to
evaluate, especially if an institute chooses not to have a competition for the awarding of time. However,
LBTO will collect the data from all the partners and compile them to give an overview of this pressure.
Goal: the pressure must stay above 3, while 2 is considered by many as a healthy minimum. The evolution
of the pressure with time will be an important information on the adequacy of the instrumentation to the
aspirations of the community. Note that, for many TACS, most important than the pressure is the fact that
all accepted programs are really good.
Number of publications LBTO Refereed Papers
45
With its instrumentation slowing coming to operation and 40
35
a big fraction of the night time allocated to commissioning 30
over the past years, the rate of LBT-based publications per 25
20
year is low compared to other telescopes, which is not 15
really a surprise. It has been moving up though, reaching 40 10
in 2013! With more time given to science and more 50
instruments available to benefit from the key features of 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Guider LBC LUCI MODS AO
LBT (AO and interferometry), this number will grow with
time. A goal of 120 papers per year before the end of the decade seems reachable, comparable to the
other large facilities if one takes into into account the monsoon and a less favorable weather pattern than
Chilean and Hawaiian sites.
Nights available to science
Outside of the commissioning time for instrument upgrades or new instruments, which will significantly
decrease by the end of 2015, most of the nights should be spent for science. The monsoon shutdown is a
key time for the heavy maintenance of the facility as well as the regular maintenance of the instruments.
It means that the use of technical time during the rest of the year must be minimal. The goal is to keep
the number of scheduled technical time under five nights a semester. In a commissioning-free semester,
80% of the time should therefore be devoted to science (shutdown counted).
Moving to Q will actually help dealing with technical time, which can be dynamically scheduled and
interspersed with science observations.
LBT2020 P a g e | 17Observing time lost to technical faults and shutter open time So far… The current LBTO requirements come from the 2002 LBT Operations Concept Draft (Gredel, Osmer, Rix), subsequently reviewed and validated in early 2005 (Osmer, Gredel, Marano, Schmidt). They are summarized below. (Requirements stated and goals given in parentheses) Single telescope – seeing-limited operations
Adaptive secondary mirrors, AO and GLAO The adaptive secondary mirrors are still young and there is little experience in their long-term reliability, especially when used on every observing night. Some, if not most, of the key LBTO science will depend on their availability. Our recent experience (contamination on one side and accidental water damages on the other) shows the impact on observation and the time spent to repair them. Indeed a rigid secondary will still allow for a full use of both sides, and Q will help mitigate the consequences by reshuffling and accepting only non-AO observations for a little while. However, if LBTO is used heavily for what it is very good at, i.e. AO-based observations, the impact of overall efficiency will be high if an adaptive secondary is missing for a significant amount of time! See the discussion on this point in the Risk Mitigation section. A requirement for the adaptive secondaries could be in term of time lost, which could be as low as reconfiguring the telescope and move to other science on just one side of the telescope for the rest of the night and installing the rigid secondary for the following night. The real loss would be on efficiency for that part of the night which just one side. However, more important will be how often such failures will happen, and even more important how long it will take to have a secondary mirror back on the telescope, and how much engineering time on the sky will be required to make it science-ready again. We will clearly learn more on this in the early year(s) of the plan. On the AO software side, there are definitely a few improvements to do in order to make it more reliable, especially at times of variable seeing. Once the LBTO AO is more mature, one should expect that its software is no longer a significant source of observing time losses. A requirement of less than 8% downtime due to AO failures does not seem appropriate as a goal. Ultimately, AO should not cause more time losses beyond the 2% also required for the instruments, not counting the consequences of a catastrophic failure. ARGOS, the GLAO system to be made available for regular operation in 2016, is designed to be robust (solid state laser) and easily repaired (off-the-shelf equipment). Therefore, if we are in Q mode, reconfiguration of the telescope and a rapid solution of the problem in the following day(s) will mean little impact on the LBTO observing programs. Once again, the early semesters of ARGOS regular use will bring more information on the system reliability beyond the requirements given at the time of its design. What about the telescope and the enclosure? While an instrument failure does not necessarily mean much downtime because one can most of the time fall back to another instrument, especially in Q mode, issues with the telescope or the enclosure have devastating consequences, as there is only one telescope and one enclosure! Much progress has been made over the years and losses due telescope/enclosure mechanical or software issues currently account for around 1% of the observing time. While a major failure is always possible at a big facility like LBTO, the continuous improvement of the preventive maintenance program and a close monitoring of the health of the facility should ensure that downtime from telescope and enclosure should not be a big contributor to the overall loss of observing time, staying below 1%. LBT2020 P a g e | 19
Observation overheads Observation overheads, or the time spent on the sky not gathering photons, come from various sources: telescope slews, field acquisition, guide/AO setting, telescope configuration changes, instrument masks or filter changes, detector readout, … These overheads are well documented at LBT for the facility instruments and the telescope, and will be better known for AO and GLAO once they have been used in regular operations. The next step will be to review all of them and perform a cost/benefit analysis of the possible improvements which could be made to minimize them. Overheads are indeed the main source of the (in)efficiency of an observatory. It is not rare to see open shutter time barely reaching 50% of the clear sky time, which is currently the case for our facility instruments. Q efficiency Metrics to measure the efficiency of an Observatory-run Queue mode are an intrinsic part of its implementation. Therefore, all sorts of metrics will be available, such as queue efficiency based on data validation statistics, completion of highly ranked programs, or user satisfaction from Phase1 to data delivery, to cite only a few. The fact that Q, if adopted as the main observing mode for facility instruments, mitigates the technical issues must be stressed. However, the metrics related to the completion rate for high-priority programs will be definitely take a hit if the instruments they require are not available. Even in Q, the reliability of the telescope and its instrumentation is essential! A last note about Q efficiency: an accurate weather forecast on Mt Graham based on a fine grid model, including seeing predictions, would be extremely useful. Such a forecast is routinely done for Mauna Kea by the Department of Meteorology of the University of Hawaii. Contacts have been made with the UA Atmospheric Sciences Department, which provides now Skew-T diagram predictions for Mt Graham based on semi-fine (~1km) grid, as well as with our Italian colleagues, led by Elena Masciadri (Arcetri) who has made extensive work on seeing predictions. Elena will present her work at the Users’ Meeting. LBTO as a work place It is important for LBTO to evaluate itself based on staff feedback on their work, their work place, and their working relationship with their colleagues and the management. LBTO will conduct an initial survey to assess the current status of the observatory and will continue to do it regularly (every two to three years). In addition the staff itself, survey results will be made available to the Board. The usual staff-related metrics such as retention, turnover and vacancy rates will be carefully tracked. Comments from outside the observatory, and even outside of the partnership, are also very important. LBTO will be reviewed by a visiting committee in early 2015. LBT2020 P a g e | 20
Annex 1 - Enhancing science productivity: archive and pipelines Introduction From discussions with the LBTO partners, I believe that the whole LBTO partnership is concerned about the current low level of science productivity demonstrated by the small number of scientific publications. There are good reasons to explain this: first light announced while the telescope was far to be operational and instrumentation was still very primitive, much slower than expected deployment of the first generation of facility instruments, much rework on the facility side to make it really operational, lack of instruments to use the superb AO, and the struggle between instrument commissioning and science operation. Some of these reasons will linger for a while, but things will get eventually better if we help the whole process proactively from the observatory. Below are some of the measures we can take to help boosting the number of publications. They will require the participation of the partnership, a good thing as the concerns are partnership-wide! They will also require work at LBTO, especially from the astronomers with help from the software group… Establish a default proprietary time Defining a default proprietary time (prop-time) is common practice to many modern observatories. A one- year default is generally used for prop-time. PIs can always ask their TAC for an extension in special cases, like time series where the PI intends to wait for three years while someone could jump using only two and scoop the team, or long term projects where the first publication is scheduled after enough data have been gathered. We propose to have a one-year default prop-time for all partners. Setting this in the archive is easy enough and data will be protected for their defined prop-time, and released for public access at its expiration. Defining a default proprietary time common to all partners for data taken at LBT (aka prop-time) will have three main positive consequences: - PIs will have to use their data relatively quickly if they don’t want to see others using them. - Observations will be open to the world through the LBTO archive, therefore increasing the amount of publications based on LBTO data. - It will contribute to the building of an LBTO users’ community though the sharing of the same policies among the partnership. LBT2020 P a g e | 21
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