National Optical Astronomy Observatory Fiscal Year Annual Report for FY 2012 (1 October 2011 – 30 September 2012) Submitted to the National Science Foundation Pursuant to Cooperative Support Agreement No. AST-0950945 21 December 2012 NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation Contents NOAO MISSION PROFILE ................................................................................................. IV 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 1 2 NOAO ACCOMPLISHMENTS ....................................................................................... 3 2.1 Achievements ..................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Status of Vision and Goals ................................................................................. 4 2.2.1 Status of FY12 High-Level Deliverables ............................................ 5 2.2.2 FY12 Planned vs. Actual Spending and Revenues .............................. 7 2.3 Challenges and Their Impacts .......................................................................... 10 3 SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES AND FINDINGS .............................................................. 12 3.1 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ....................................................... 12 3.2 Kitt Peak National Observatory ....................................................................... 16 3.3 Gemini Observatory ......................................................................................... 21 3.4 Community Access Facilities ........................................................................... 23 4 GROUND-BASED O/IR OBSERVING SYSTEM OPERATIONS ............................ 26 4.1 NOAO South .................................................................................................... 26 4.1.1 CTIO .................................................................................................. 26 4.1.2 NOAO South Engineering & Technical Services ............................. 31 4.1.3 NOAO South Facilities Operations ................................................... 32 4.1.4 NOAO South Computer Infrastructure Services ............................... 33 4.1.5 NOAO South Administrative Services .............................................. 34 4.2 NOAO North .................................................................................................... 35 4.2.1 KPNO ................................................................................................ 35 4.2.2 NOAO North Engineering & Technical Services ............................. 42 i NOAO FISCAL YEAR ANNUAL REPORT FY 2012 4.2.3 NOAO North Central Facilities Operations ...................................... 44 4.2.4 NOAO North Computer Infrastructure Services .............................. 45 4.3 NOAO System Science Center ........................................................................ 46 4.3.1 System User Support......................................................................... 47 4.3.2 Science Data Management ................................................................ 49 4.3.3 System Community Development .................................................... 52 4.4 NOAO System Technology Center ................................................................. 55 4.4.1 System Instrumentation .................................................................... 55 4.4.2 ReSTAR Instrumentation.................................................................. 58 4.4.3 Telescope System Instrumentation Program ..................................... 59 4.4.4 LSST Technology Program .............................................................. 61 5 NOAO-WIDE PROGRAMS ........................................................................................... 68 5.1 Central Administrative Services ...................................................................... 68 5.2 Office of Science ............................................................................................. 69 5.3 Education and Public Outreach ....................................................................... 70 5.4 NOAO Director’s Office ................................................................................. 78 5.5 ARRA Infrastructure Renewal ........................................................................ 81 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................ 83 A FY12 BUDGET BY PROGRAM .................................................................................... 84 A.1 FY12 Expenditures .......................................................................................... 84 A.2 FY12 Revenue ................................................................................................. 88 A.3 FY12 Funds Carried Forward to FY13............................................................ 91 B NOAO KEY MANAGEMENT & SCIENTIFIC STAFF ACTIVITY ........................ 92 B.1 NOAO Key Management during FY12........................................................... 92 B.2 Scientific Staff Changes during FY12 ............................................................. 92 B.3 Division of Effort—NOAO Scientific/Management Staff .............................. 93 B.4 Scientific Staff Accomplishments and Plans ................................................. 101 C NOAO SCIENTIFIC STAFF PUBLICATIONS ........................................................ 132 D PUBLICATIONS USING DATA FROM NOAO TELESCOPES ............................ 148 D.1 Telescopes at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ............................. 148 D.2 Telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory .............................................. 156 D.3 Gemini Telescopes (NOAO System Science Center) ................................... 166 D.4 W. M. Keck Observatory: Keck I and II ....................................................... 172 D.5 HET and MMT .............................................................................................. 173 D.6 Magellan ........................................................................................................ 173 D.7 CHARA and Hale .......................................................................................... 174 ii CONTENTS D.8 NOAO Science Archive ................................................................................. 174 E USAGE STATISTICS FOR ARCHIVED DATA ....................................................... 176 F TELESCOPE PROPOSAL STATISTICS ................................................................... 178 F.1 Semester 2012A Proposal Statistics ............................................................... 178 F.2 Semester 2012B Proposal Statistics ............................................................... 179 G OBSERVING PROGRAMS & INVESTIGATORS FOR 2012 ................................. 181 G.1 Demographics ................................................................................................ 181 G.2 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ..................................................... 183 G.3 Kitt Peak National Observatory ..................................................................... 188 G.4 Gemini Observatory ....................................................................................... 197 G.5 Community Access to Private Telescopes ..................................................... 210 H BROADENING PARTICIPATION ............................................................................. 214 I GRANTS OBTAINED IN FY12 ................................................................................... 219 J SAFETY REPORT FOR Q4 ......................................................................................... 221 Cover Caption The iconic Orion Nebula is a target of one of the 13 programs selected for the new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) science verification (SV) period. Primary investigator E. Bertin (IAP, Paris), co-investigator Hervé Buoy (INTA-CSIC, Madrid, Spain), and their colleagues proposed to use DECam to study the colors and kinematics of several young star clusters, including the cluster associated with this famous nebula. The dynamic range and wide field of DECam will enable these researchers to do a complete and homogeneous census of the stellar content of these associations down to the planetary mass regime and in dusty, young embedded regions. The background image is DECam mounted on the Blanco telescope. The composite color DECam image (smaller, right side) seen here is a three-filter composite (g, i, z) of the Orion Nebula. The larger DECam image, to illustrate the full field with two DECam dithers, is a two-filter composite (i, z). For both images, the instrumental calibration (flat fielding and astrometry) was done with the DECam Com- munity Pipeline and the remapping, stacking, and color compositing was done with IRAF. The unprece- dented wide-field and the efficiency by which the images can be produced make these two images unique. The images shown here total just 40 minutes exposure time. This data is provided by Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, as distributed by the NOAO Sci- ence Archive. NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under cooperative agreement with the National Science