Marc Balcells Director, Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade



Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes

ING operates three telescopes for UK, NL, ES

WHT

INT JKT

4.2m

2.5m

1.0m (not offered)  Oldest, largest ORM user institution  At ORM since 1982  ~40 staff, 25 years operating telescopes  Leading scientific production  Currently planning for next 10 years 2011-08-31 IoA Cambridge 2

Instrumentation http://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/observing/instruments.html

WHT developed as versatile telescope with easy switching between focal stations 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 3

Program of Visiting Instruments

Successful program of easy deployment of private instruments          SAURON PNS PlanetPol ExPo INTEGRAL ULTRACAM FastCam GHaFaS SPIFS • Future • PAUCam • AOLI Lucky Imager 2012 March 22

Test-bed for E-ELT technologies

• • • • CANARY system for multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) for EAGLE (E-ELT) Durham, UKATC, Paris-LESIA, Marseille, ING Phase A (NGS) successful Now preparing Phase B, 4 LGS, open loop. 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 5

Training

 ING resident student programme  4 PhD students spend 1 yr at ING  Manage and support all INT observations  Many PhD students learn to be astronomers at ING  2012-13 student selection open  Deadline 2012 April 6  http://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/science/studentship.html

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 6

  

Collaboration with GTC

An ING-GTC alliance at ORM: the

T&Inet MoU



ING-GTC Telescope and Instrumentation Network

 Signed 2011 Collaboration projects  OSIRIS cryostat (2011 Jan – June)  Alignment of GTC primary mirror segments(ongoing) Potential for growth 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 7

WHT usage, oversubscription

 Spain: increasing demand  Spain oversubscr: 2.5-3  Remains high after accession to ESO  VLT oversubscr: 3.2

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 8

High-impact scientific productivity

Forthcoming paper: Benn & Jiménez-Luján, Scientific

impact of large telescopes 1991-

2010, in prep. 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 9

Plans for next decade

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 10

Thinking ING’s future  ING Board

Simon Berry Ramón García López Paul Hewett Matt Jarvis

 ING SAC

Paul Groot Amina Helmi Henk Hoekstra Mike Irwin (Chair)

 ING Manag.

Don C. Abrams Marc Balcells Chris Benn Christoph Keller (Chair) Alfonso López Aguerri Ronald Stark Ross McLure Francisco Najarro Will Percival Ismael Pérez-Fournon Juan Martínez Ian Skillen

 STFC-NWO-IAC-GTC working group

Pedro Alvarez Marc Balcells Ramón García-López James Hough Rafael Rebolo Ronald Stark Colin Vincent John Womersley

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 11



4m in 10m era

Do what you do better than the 10m 

Wide field astronomy

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 12

2012 March 22

Strategic planning 2013-2022

http://www.ing.iac.es/about-ING/strategy/  2013-2016 1.

Maintain current model of general purpose telescope 2.

Build, commission WEAVE  2017-2022  WEAVE surveys  Retain some access to other instruments?

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2013-2016

2012 March 22    General-purpose telescope model  Introduce long-term programmes  Upgrade survey instruments Maintain  Students, technology programmes, visitor instruments  Future visitor instruments PAUCam (2013); AOLI (2014) Build, commission WEAVE  Talk Friday by Gavin Dalton, WEAVE PI RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 14

Long-term programmes

2012 March 22  Expect increase telescope productivity  ONLY IF demmanded by the community  Requires changes in TAC processes  Common UK, NL, ES TAC for long programmes 

Upgrade ‘survey’ instruments

 AF2/WYFFOS  4k Red+CCD. Throughput/operational issues  ISIS, LIRIS, … RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 15

Why continue 2013-2016

2012 March 22 1.

Northern sky access 2.

 Complementarity to GTC For Spain, WHT is still ‘the’ general purpose telescope  Science  All kinds! You need to tell us  Multi-wavelength coverage of important missions  Gaia; Herschel; LOFAR; UKIDSS; … RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 16

2017-2022 Surveys in the WEAVE epoch

 Scott Trager’s talk, this Friday  50%? 70%?

100%

? time to WEAVE surveys?

2011-09-20  Spain: scientific complementarity WHT – GTC  Classical : WHT – imaging, GTC – Spectroscopy??

 Alternative :  Spectroscopy, WHT: V=17=20 // GTC: V=20-23  WHT/ WEAVE combined with GTC/ MEGARA  Powerful opportunities for Spanish astronomy Santillana - 2a Reunión REG 17

Summary: we’d like your needs/plans for

 2013-2016  Would you use WHT long-term programmes  Would you tolerate long-term programmes  Instrument upgrade requests  Coordination with other facilities  ING role in training astronomers.  2017-2022  Interest in retaining (some) current instruments  Interest in retaining INT  Cost impact!

18 2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade

THANKS

2012 March 22 RIA Workshop - Science with ORM and CAHA in the next decade 19