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NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY QUARTERLY SCIENTIFIC REPORT (2) FY 2014 1 January–31 March 2014 The new Cerro Tololo Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (COSMOS) fully assembled in the coudé lab of the CTIO Blanco 4-m telescope in Chile. Following its shipment from Tucson to La Serena in March 2014, the collimator and camera optics, slit masks, dispersers, and blocking filters were re-installed by a team of staff from NOAO North and South and The Ohio State University. Testing using a pinhole mask determined that the image quality of COSMOS was the same as in the Tucson lab prior to shipment. Image credit: Jonathan (Jay) Elias, NOAO/AURA/NSF. Submitted to the National Science Foundation Pursuant to Cooperative Support Agreement No. AST-0950945, Article 3-A Cooperative Agreement No. AST-0809409 Also published on the NOAO website: http://www.noao.edu NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation National Optical Astronomy Observatory Quarterly Scientific Report (2) FY 2014 (1 January 2014 – 31 March 2014) Submitted to the National Science Foundation Pursuant to Cooperative Support Agreement No. AST-0950945 30 April 2014 Contents 1 NOAO DIVISIONS ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 NOAO South ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory .......................................... 1 1.1.2 NOAO South Engineering & Technical Services ............................... 4 1.1.3 NOAO South Facilities Operations ..................................................... 5 1.1.4 NOAO South Computer Infrastructure Services ................................. 6 1.2 NOAO North ...................................................................................................... 7 1.2.1 Kitt Peak National Observatory ........................................................... 7 1.2.2 NOAO North Engineering & Technical Services ............................. 10 1.2.3 NOAO North Central Facilities Operations ...................................... 11 1.2.4 NOAO North Computer Infrastructure Services ............................... 12 1.3 NOAO System Science Center ........................................................................ 13 1.3.1 System User Support ......................................................................... 14 1.3.2 Science Data Management ................................................................ 15 1.3.3 System Community Development ..................................................... 18 1.3.4 Time Allocation Committee .............................................................. 22 1.4 NOAO System Technology Center .................................................................. 23 1.4.1 System Instrumentation ..................................................................... 23 1.4.2 LSST Technology .............................................................................. 24 2 NOAO-WIDE PROGRAMS ............................................................................................... 29 2.1 Office of Science .............................................................................................. 29 2.2 Education and Public Outreach ........................................................................ 30 2.3 NOAO Director’s Office .................................................................................. 34 3 OBSERVING PROGRAMS SEMESTER 2014A ............................................................. 37 3.1 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ....................................................... 37 3.2 Kitt Peak National Observatory ....................................................................... 41 i NOAO QUARTERLY REPORT FY 2014 (2) 3.3 Gemini Observatory ........................................................................................ 45 3.4 Community Access to Private Telescopes....................................................... 53 3.4.1 Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy .............................. 53 3.4.2 Keck Observatory ............................................................................. 53 3.4.3 Australian Astronomical Observatory .............................................. 54 4 USAGE OF ARCHIVED DATA ........................................................................................ 55 5 GRANTS .............................................................................................................................. 56 6 NOAO SAFETY REPORT FOR Q2 ................................................................................. 57 ii 1 NOAO DIVISIONS 1.1 NOAO SOUTH The NOAO South (NS) division is responsible for operations, maintenance, and development for all NOAO activities in Chile. For program management purposes, these activities are separated into the following subprograms: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory NOAO South Engineering & Technical Services NOAO South Central Facilities Operations NOAO South Computer Infrastructure Services 1.1.1 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory Program Highlights Science The publication of the first paper based on data obtained by community scientists using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-m telescope occurred during this reporting period. Dr. Chadwick Trujillo (Gemini Observatory) and Dr. Scott Sheppard (Department of Terrestrial Mag- netism, Carnegie Institute for Science) reported the discovery of the Solar System object with the most distant orbit known, 2012 VP113, with a perihelion distance of 80 AU (Nature, 507, 471). 2012 VP113 was discovered in a series of three exposures obtained with DECam at intervals of ~2 hours on 5 Nov 2012 during community science verification time (Figure 1). It was subsequently re- covered in images obtained with the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph on the Ma- gellan Baade 6.5-m telescope at three epochs (March, August, and October 2013) and in pre- discovery archival images obtained with the Canada-France Hawaii-Telescope in October 2011, al- lowing the secure determination of its orbit. 2012 VP113 joins the dwarf planet Sedna, discovered in 2003, as the only known objects orbit- ing entirely beyond the outer edge of the Kuiper belt at ~50 AU. The discovery of Sedna posed the Figure 1: The discovery images of the new inner Oort cloud object 2012 VP113 taken about 2 hours apart on UT 5 November 2012 with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-m telescope. The motion of 2012 VP113 clearly stands out compared to the motionless background of stars and galaxies. (Image credit: Scott S. Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science.) 1 NOAO QUARTERLY REPORT FY 2014(2) question of whether it was one of a kind, or the first member of a new population of outer Solar Sys- tem objects. The discovery of a second member supports the latter interpretation. In their science verification program, Chadwick and Trujillo surveyed 52 square degrees (19 DECam fields) with sufficient sensitivity to detect 95% of trans-Neptunian objects brighter than mr = 24.3. They found 90 trans-Neptunians between 30 AU and 50 AU, but only 2012 VP113 at a greater distance. From these discovery statistics, Chadwick and Trujillo infer that Sedna and 2012 VP113 may indeed be members of an “inner Oort cloud” population that could outnumber all other dynamically stable populations in the Solar System. Further, 2012 VP113 and Sedna have similar arguments of perihelion (the angle between the point of perihelion and where the orbit crosses the celestial plane); surprisingly, the arguments of perihelion of all known trans-Neptunian objects with orbital semi-major axes greater than 150 AU show significant clustering around this same value. Chadwick and Trujillo suggest that this may re- sult because a super-earth-mass object at a distance of 250 AU has “shepherded” all these objects in- to similar orbits. Instrumentation/Management Stephen Heathcote assumed the position of Associate Director for NOAO South on 1 February 2014, taking over from Nicole van der Bliek. She had served as interim director since October 2012 and will continue as the deputy associate director for NOAO South. During the second quarter of FY14, CTIO’s efforts were focused on improvements to the Blan- co 4-m telescope, supporting the closing months of the first observing season of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and the subsequent ramp up in the use of DECam by the open-access community. With the commissioning of the ƒ/8 secondary mirror completed in the first quarter of FY14, at- tention turned to refurbishment of the infrastructure needed to support ƒ/8 instruments, in particular the new Cerro Tololo Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (COSMOS). That instrument was de- livered to Chile at the beginning of March, was reassembled, and tested ready for its first installation on the telescope in April and subsequent commissioning. Four full nights and 21 first-half nights in January and early February were devoted to DES, during which time 100% of the images obtained were declared “survey quality,” bringing the first season of survey observations to a successful close. The balance of the science time in the reporting period was used by community scientists to obtain data with DECam for 30 distinct programs, span- ning a diverse range of science topics from Near-Earth Objects

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