Category Archives: News and Announcements

2025 IREx MSc and PhD positions in Exoplanets Science

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Each year, IREx professors hire new students to do a master’s degree (M.Sc.) or a doctorate (Ph.D.) in the field of exoplanets at the Université de Montréal or one of the other home universities of the regular IREx members (McGill University and Bishop’s University).

The Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) consists of a growing team of 60+ researchers (professors, postdocs, research assistants and students) working on various research programs focused on the study of exoplanets and related fields of stellar astrophysics. Members of IREx lead many large international projects related to the detection and characterisation of exoplanets, such as the Canadian component of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and precision radial velocity instruments SPIRou and NIRPS.

IREx also has a vibrant science education and public outreach program led by astrophysicists who are seasoned science communicators. All of our members have many opportunities to communicate science in various ways to a wide audience.

If you are interested in joining us for the Fall, Winter or Summer term, please check our website for more information https://exoplanetes.umontreal.ca/en/emplois-formation/cycles-superieurs/ or contact Marie-Eve Naud, Marie-eve.naud@umontreal.ca

CASCA Midterm Review Community Paper Solicitation

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UPDATE

We remind you that the deadline is approaching for the limited call for community papers* for the CASCA Midterm Review (MTR2025) of the Canadian Astronomy Long Range Plan for 2020-2030 (LRP2020).

Community papers must be submitted as PDF files, capped at a length of three 8.5”x11” pages (approximately two pages of text and one page for figures, tables, references), with a minimum of 11-point font and 2-cm margins. Submissions must be in PDF format, and should not exceed a file size of 10 MB. Community paper submissions may be made in English or in French. Submissions not meeting these requirements will not be considered.

All submitted community papers will be posted as public documents on the MTR2025 web page (https://casca.ca/?page_id=20680). Teams wishing to submit supplementary confidential material will be able to indicate as such through the community paper submission process.

The NEW deadline for community paper submissions is December 6, 2024 (midnight local time). Please submit your white paper via this form: https://forms.gle/8gJC5BfDS28RuWLh6.

Daryl Haggard and Laura Parker

MTR2025 Co-Chairs, on behalf of the MTR2025 Panel

* We update our language from “white paper” to “community paper”, acknowledging its historical significance (Weaver, 1981; see also LRP W007).

We are pleased to announce a limited call for white papers for the CASCA Midterm Review (MTR2025) of the Canadian Astronomy Long Range Plan for 2020-2030 (LRP2020).

The MTR2025 will offer an assessment of the status of the LRP2020 recommendations, an analysis of new opportunities, and recommendations to address emerging issues. The series of priorities that result are anticipated to be relevant on a 5-year timeline and are not to include major revisions or expansions of LRP2020 that are inconsistent with the original goals of the plan. The resulting review will serve as a single unified vision to reaffirm the LRP2020 process over the second half of the 2020-2030 decade.

SCOPE OF WHITE PAPERS: As a result of the MTR2025’s mandate, this call for white papers is limited in scope to new opportunities and/or major changes in the Canadian astronomical landscape. This may include new instruments and facilities, as well as major new scientific endeavors. Updates to existing recommendations made in the LRP2020 should be referred to the relevant committees, for inclusion in their committee reports to the MTR2025, (i.e., updates should not be submitted via this white paper solicitation). Please submit committee updates no later than November 20, 2024, to ensure inclusion in their report. If you would like to provide an update but are not sure which committee it should be referred to, please contact a member of the MTR2025 team (https://casca.ca/?page_id=20680).

SUBMISSION AND DUE DATES: The deadline for white paper submissions is December 4, 2024 (midnight local time). Please submit your white paper via this form: https://forms.gle/8gJC5BfDS28RuWLh6.

AUTHORSHIP: Each white paper must have a designated contact person. Anonymous submissions will not be considered. Confidential supplementary material (e.g., budgets, proprietary technical information) can be submitted separately to the MTR2025 panel; the relevance of this material should be described in the public submission. There are no restrictions on the affiliations of co-authors, and no limit on the number of co-authors. Note that the number of co-authors will not necessarily be taken as an indication of the level of community interest.

FORMAT AND LENGTH: White paper submissions may be made in English or in French.

White papers must be submitted as PDF files, capped at a length of three 8.5”x11” pages (approximately two pages of text and one page for figures, tables, references), with a minimum of 11-point font and 2-cm margins. Submissions must be in PDF format, and should not exceed a file size of 10 MB. Submissions not meeting these requirements will not be considered.

PUBLICATION: All submitted white papers will be posted as public documents on the MTR2025 web page (https://casca.ca/?page_id=20680). Teams wishing to submit supplementary confidential material will be able to indicate as such through the white paper submission process.

DISCUSSION AND QUESTIONS: We encourage open discussion on the coordination of white papers and plan to organize several CASCA Town Halls to facilitate community engagement in the MTR2025 process. Questions about any aspect of the MTR2025 process can also be sent by email to the co-chairs Daryl Haggard daryl.haggard@mcgill.caand Laura Parker lparker@mcmaster.ca

Daryl Haggard and Laura Parker
MTR2025 Co-Chairs, on behalf of the MTR2025 Panel

Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal for the year 2024

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The Astronomical Society of India invites nominations for Prof. M. K. Vainu Bappu Gold Medal for the year 2024.

Instituted in the memory of late M. K. Vainu Bappu, founder President of the Society and a past President of the International Astronomical Union, this medal is awarded once every two years to honour exceptional contributions to Astronomy & Astrophysics by young scientists anywhere in the world.

Young astronomers with exceptional achievements and promise are eligible for the award. The scientific achievements may be in any branch of astronomy, astrophysics and related fields. There are no restrictions on nationality. The nominee must be of 35 years of age or below, as on 31 Dec 2024. There is an age relaxation of 3 yrs for women candidates, with an upper age limit of 38 years. Work done prior to 31 December 2023 will only be considered.

Please find more information about the award from the link below, the nominations will be accepted through the online form available in the page.
For the award year 2024, the nominations for the award must be received by 18th Nov 2024.

https://www.astron-soc.in/vainu_bappu.

Please find the poster for your reference from the following link, and request for wide publicity regarding this award.

https://astron-soc.in/sites/default/files/ASI_VB2024.pdf

Best regards.
Sarita Vig
Secretary – ASI

The Third Penn State SETI Symposium

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This symposium will be a broad look at SETI, including new technosignature search results and upper limits, new search methodologies and instrumentation, theory, and social aspects of the field including the post-detection protocols, message construction, and the historical roots of the field. Interdisciplinarity will be emphasized. As with previous instances, we encourage the submission of proposals for breakout sessions for workshops, tutorials, or special sessions on narrower topics. Early career researchers are especially encouraged to attend.

Website link: https://sites.psu.edu/setisymposium2025/

To receive updates including announcement of the opening of abstract submission and registration, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/BcXwwNGQkLwkpyf5A

Galaxy Zoo Euclid

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Galaxy Zoo (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo/) is a citizen science project asking members of the public to annotate images of galaxies.

Galaxy Zoo recently launched a new version showing images from Euclid. These images would not otherwise be released until (at least) March 2025. This is the first opportunity for anyone outside of the Euclid Consortium to see images from the Euclid’s main surveys. Read more on the ESA’s website (https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Euclid_Galaxy_Zoo_help_us_classify_the_shapes_of_galaxies).

The volunteer annotations are used to train machine models to interpret all Euclid images. The more annotations collected, the better these models will perform. Volunteers have already contributed over 200,000 annotations in the first two weeks.

Please consider sharing the project with outreach and education colleagues. Anyone joining in will be advancing science, learning about galaxies, and seeing images that no-one has seen before. A French translation is also available (language dropdown in top right).

On behalf of the Morphology of Galaxies in Euclid working package,

Mike Walmsley (Dunlap Institute, UofT)
and
Ivana Damjanov (SMU)

ALMA Matters

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ALMAlogo
By / par Brenda Matthews and Gerald Schieven (NRC)
(Cassiopeia – Summer / été 2024)

WSU News

NRC Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics, along with colleagues from NRAO, are designing the new correlator for ALMA (the ATAC, or Advanced Technology ALMA Correlator), as part of a larger ALMA-wide effort to upgrade ALMA capabilities for the 2030s and beyond (the ALMA Wideband Sensitivity Upgrade, WSU). Last week, ATAC became the first of the subsystems to pass PDR (Preliminary Design Review), and so now enters Critical Design, and this excellent result will no doubt mark an important precedent for the whole WSU effort. At HAA, the ATAC team consists of Brent Carlson, Marty Cluff, Thushara Gunaratne, Stephen Harrison, Nitin Mehta, Michael Pleasance, Fan Zhang, with contributions from many others.

The PDR committee recognised the “Herculean effort” put in by the team, and described them as “phenomenally competent”, having created a “very elegant solution” for the design of the Correlator. Wow!

Cycle 10 Update

ALMA is currently in configuration C-5 (max baseline 1.4 km), moving outward to C-6 at the end of June, then moving inward to end the cycle in September in config C-3.

Cycle 11 Proposal Submission News

On April 24th at around 13 UTC, the day prior to the ALMA Cycle 11 CfP deadline, proposals requiring Bands 7 and higher started experiencing inconsistent observing time estimates. This was due to a temporary and intermittent connectivity issue between the online calibrator catalogue and the Observing Tool (OT), required to search for high frequency calibrators. When the calibrator catalogue could not be accessed, band-to-band calibration was assigned, resulting in an increase in the observing time estimates. In some cases, this prevented validation and submission if the observing time increased above the Large Program threshold. As announced on the Science Portal, initially the problem occurred intermittently and appeared resolved after a short time. Unfortunately, the issue recurred during the hours before the scheduled proposal submission deadline (April 25 at 15 UTC). A second issue related to user authentication also occurred close to the deadline, sometimes preventing users from logging in to submit their proposals. Both issues persisted until the deadline despite steps taken by ALMA to restart specific services. The issues were later identified as resulting from a performance degradation of the servers at the JAO, for which mitigating steps are being taken to prevent this occurring in the future.

To assist users who were impacted by these technical issues, ALMA took the following steps.

A second announcement was placed on the ALMA Science Portal instructing users to submit Helpdesk tickets prior to the ALMA deadline if they continued to be impacted by the issues. ALMA assisted all users who submitted Helpdesk tickets by the deadline and were unable to submit or resubmit their proposals due to these issues. Exceptionally, due to the issues occurring so close to the deadline, ALMA also helped users who submitted Helpdesk tickets immediately after the deadline. Observatory staff assisted users by submitting proposals (.aot files) to the ALMA Archive on behalf of these users. Only proposals affected by these specific issues were submitted in this manner.

All cases in which the proposal was submitted by the PI but with incorrect observing time estimates due to the calibrator catalogue issue will be fixed by the Observatory before proposals are sent to review. Reviewers will also be instructed to ignore any discrepancies in observing time estimates for Bands 7 and above.

It was decided to assist users in this way instead of extending the proposal submission deadline since the technical issues were ongoing and there was no estimate for when normal service could be restored.

Despite the problems affecting the final few hours of the Cycle 11 proposal deadline, ALMA has continued to have a strong demand for time on the telescope, with 1712 proposals submitted for Cycle 11, requesting 53533 hours of time on the 12m-, the 7m-, and the TP arrays. The number of proposals has remained steady over the last few cycles, while time requested for the 12m-array at 31,610 hours was the highest yet, with an oversubscription rate of 7.4. Canadian-led proposals are also continuing to be submitted in strong numbers with 51 proposals submitted requesting 2101 hours, an oversubscription rate of just over 10 of the Canada’s nominal share of North American time.

ALMA Primer Video Series

The ALMA Primer Instructional Video series, which can be found on the Science Portal here, is designed to provide a basic introduction to radio interferometry, calibration, imaging, and other topics in short (5-10 minute), easy-to-digest segments. As a work in progress, new videos are released periodically. A new video, an Introduction to Sidebands, Basebands and Spectral Windows, is expected to be released in early July, and several more will be released later this summer.

Other videos in the series include an Introduction to Radio Interferometry, Calibration, CLEAN, and much more. Subscribe to the ALMA Primer Video Series YouTube channel to be alerted to new videos as they are released.

We are always looking for ideas for new videos, and especially looking for people who would like to help with script generation, animation, and narration. If you have an idea or would like to join the Primer Video Working Group (at any level of effort), please contact gerald.schieven@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.

Update on CASTOR

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By / par John Hutchings, Patrick Côté (NRC Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre)
(Cassiopeia – Summer / été 2024)

The UKSA and CSA have signed a bilateral agreement that includes CASTOR. Funds have been already approved and are being used for UK science definition, detector testing, and development work on data flows and optics. On May 13-14, a UKSA delegation visited CSA, Montreal universities and Honeywell Aerospace, and then hosted a reception in Ottawa. UK-led science definition work focuses on TDAMM, galaxies, near-field cosmology and solar system science; an initial coordination meeting between the Canadian and UK science teams was held on June 13.

The final review meeting of the three-year Space Technology Development Program contract, led by ABB, was held on May 16. This contract elevated the TRLs for several technically challenging mission components, with significant work done on the opto-mechanical design, the Focal Plane Arrays, the Fast Steering mirror prototyping, the precision photometer, grism, and UVMOS. After many months, formal export licences to share these details with the UK and LAM partners have been approved.

The NRC internal “Small Teams” proposal to develop the UVMOS has been approved. This will provide some $2M over three years to perform technical work at HAA, in collaboration with partners at LAM (Marseille), LASP (Colorado), and the University of Calgary, as well as contracted work at the University of Manitoba. A kick-off meeting was held recently to initiate these exciting activities.

The CASCA AGM featured half of a shared ACURA town hall meeting on June 4. This event featured short presentations by the CASTOR team, industry, the Coalition and CSA, plus time for questions and discussions.

The Coalition lobbying activities are continuing, including quasi-regular meetings with government and opposition personnel. Coalition members also plan to meet with the CSA and NRC presidents. Although CASTOR was not listed in the federal budget, neither were TMT and SKA in previous years.

An ISSF (Inuvik Satellite Station Facility) optical ground station proposal is in early development by U Manitoba and Natural Resources Canada. This could potentially add an important high-latitude, high-speed downlink capability for CASTOR’s polar orbit.

Work is progressing towards the testing and characterization of the JPL-Te2v processed CIS120 detectors at UV wavelengths. The readout and control electronics for these devices are being developed at HAA, while vacuum facilities are being readied and staffed at HAA and the University of Calgary. This is an important step towards the development of flight detectors. Regular meetings are held with JPL, Te2v, and the UK Open University to discuss and coordinate these activities.

The development of various science planning tools continues, with several FORECASTOR papers published, submitted or in preparation. Co-op student Michelle Kao (Waterloo) recently completed a work term (hosted by U Manitoba and Magellan Aerospace) to develop a multi-mission task scheduler: this tool will be used to investigate and optimize survey scheduling. Wasi Naqvi(UBC Okanagan) recently started at co-op term at HAA to simulate the in-orbit performance of CASTOR’s expected flight detectors with ESA’s advanced Pyxel software. These simulations will support the detector testing programs underway at HAA, Calgary, Teledyne-e2v and Open University.

Plans are being developed with CSA to define Phase A statement-of-work items (or a dedicated subset for an earlier contract, depending on CASTOR funding). CSA-NRC joint agreements on funding and planning shared activities is also in detailed negotiation. The final negotiation of all international partnerships still awaits government approval of the mission.

For more information on the mission, see the CASTOR mission website.

ngVLA Update

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By / par Erik Rosolowsky (U Alberta)
(Cassiopeia – Summer / été 2024)

Still from a live view of the site at the VLA where the ngVLA prototype 18m antenna will be constructed, starting this summer.

Technology Development at Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics

Engineers at HAA are working on the preliminary designs for the ngVLA Band 5 receiver system. Band 5 is one of the high-frequency receiver band systems planned for the ngVLA, spanning the 30-50 GHz range. This development leverages HAA’s previous experience with building the ALMA Band 3 receivers. Receiver development and manufacture could form the basis of an in-kind contribution to ngVLA participation.

Progress in the US

In 2023 July the US National Science Foundation (NSF) entered the ngVLA project into the design process for Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction. The ngVLA project is continuing its preparations for the NSF-run Conceptual Design Review, scheduled for 2024 September. In recent congressional hearings, the Director of the NSF cited the ngVLA as the clear next steps for ground based radio astronomy in the US.

Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA

This ngVLA international science conference will be held 2024 November 11-14 in person in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Morelia, Mexico. The conference will highlight and explore the novel scientific opportunities that will unfold with the unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity capabilities offered by this new flagship facility. The conference will coincide with the Monarch butterflies completing their migration journey from Canada and the US to the mountains surrounding Morelia. Abstract submission for oral presentations closes July 8, and early registration is available until September 1. To take these actions, see here.

Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Update

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By /par Kristine Spekkens (Canadian SKA Science Director), Michael Rupen (SKA Program Lead, NRC-HAA), Gregory Sivakoff (ACACS Chair), Gilles Joncas (ACURA Executive Director)
(Cassiopeia – Summer / été 2024)

The last six months have been extremely eventful for Canada and the SKA. On April 14, Canada became a member of the  SKA Observatory (SKAO), with full science, technology and governance privileges. This completes the accession process that began last year, with Budget 2023 providing $269.3M over 8 years plus ongoing funds to support Canadian SKA participation through the construction phase and into operations towards the end of this decade. Some scientific, technological, and SKA Regional Centre updates for Canada and the SKA are highlighted below.

Science Update

Canada’s 6% use-share will provide the community with significant access to SKA observing time and computing resources. Construction is phased into Array Assemblies (AAs), each one with increasing numbers of dishes for SKA-Mid and antennas for SKA-Low. Major anticipated science milestones include:

  • Science Verification data from scientifically competitive arrays (Array Assembly 2 = AA2) in late 2027;
  • Shared-risk Principal Investigator (PI) observations with the AA* staged-delivery facilities in late 2028; and
  • The start of large Key Science observing Programs (KSPs) in 2030.

The SKAO science user webpages include resources ranging from staged delivery plans, to key performance documents, to data challenges, to sensitivity calculators. New tools and functionality are being continually added as they are developed by the SKA Operations Team.

In Canada, the ACURA/CASCA Advisory Committee on the SKA (ACACS) has been formed to support Canadian SKA participation and offer guidance to ACURA, CASCA, and NRC. ACACS, which supersedes the pre-commitment ACURA Advisory Committee on the SKA (AACS), will ensure coherent messaging and provide feedback, promote the SKAO and coordinate related activities across universities, identify potential resources to support future elements of Canadian SKA participation, and regularly interface with the Canadian astronomical community. ACACS is chaired by Gregory Sivakoff (University of Alberta; sivakoff@ualberta.ca), and ACURA and CASCA will soon solicit a call for committee member volunteers. Canadian astronomers interested in ACACS activities are encouraged to reach out to the chair directly.

A major international SKAO General Science Meeting will be held from 16-22 June 2025, in Görlitz, Germany, the location of the new German Center for Astrophysics (Deutsches Zentrum für Astrophysik). The meeting will focus on planning Science Verification and Early Science observation planning, and revising  the (now decade-old) SKA Science Book. Draft chapter submissions will be solicited by SKAO in early Fall, from which the Görlitz meeting program will be planned. To facilitate strong Canadian engagement in this process, ACACS will organise a two-day virtual meeting on Canadian Scientific Participation and Leadership in the SKA in mid-October. Details will be circulated to the community as they become available.

The Canadian SKA Scientists program continues to be developed, with a first call for applications expected in Fall 2024. In the steady state, this new, permanent program will support a total of 8 –10 NRC-funded SKA Scientists spread across Canadian universities. With a 3–5 year fixed term, competitive stipends, and a substantial research/travel budget, Canadian SKA Scientists will carry out independent research in astrophysics with faculty mentorship at the universities where they hold the position, and will also make wide-ranging contributions to the SKA Program under the supervision and mentorship of NRC-HAA staff. The job ad to recruit the first Canadian SKA Scientists will be widely circulated to the Canadian astronomical community.

Technology Update

Left: the pedestal for the first SKA-Mid dish is lifted into position in South Africa. Right: the first SKA-Low station in Australia. Image credits: SKAO


Significant SKA construction progress has now been made on-site. In recent months, the first SKA-Mid dish in South Africa and the first SKA-Low antenna station in Australia have been installed. Both are important steps toward Array Assembly 0.5 (= AA0.5), a major technical construction milestone consisting of the first correlated 4-dish SKA-Mid array and 4-station SKA-Low array. AA0.5 on SKA-Low is anticipated in late 2024 while that for SKA-Mid is expected in early 2025, enabling the first comprehensive, on-site engineering tests of both telescopes.

Canada’s most significant technical contribution to SKA construction is the SKA-Mid Correlator/Beamformer (Mid.CBF). Significant recent progress towards meeting that goal has been made in recent months by NRC-HAA with industry partner MDA Space, including:

  • The Mid.CBF System Requirements Review (SRR), the first major review of Mid.CBF, will be held at MDA on July 2 – 4. The goal is to show that the final design meets all the scientific and non-functional (e.g., safety and environmental) SKA requirements, and is a critical “go/no-go” decision point on the road to deployment.
  • Leading up to this review, the AA0.5 Mid.CBF system is currently being tested at the SKA-Mid system integration facility in Richmond, BC. The goal is an end-to-end demonstration of a 4-antenna / 200 MHz correlator by late June.
  • Looking further ahead, the Pulsar Timing Beamformer FPGA firmware implementation (needed for AA1) is nearing completion and progressing onto hardware tests.  AA2+ designs for the Agilex FPGAs are in the prototyping phase to ensure the firmware designs will fit in the target hardware.
  • On the hardware side, testing is underway for two candidate 32-port 400 GbE network switches to route data within Mid.CBF.
  • Software design and prototyping is also underway for a hardware/firmware emulation environment, to allow testing software systems at scale without huge amounts of signal processing hardware.

Canada is also on track to deliver high-performance, cryogenic low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) for SKA1-Mid’s Band 2 receivers.  The current focus is on the LNAs for AA0.5 and AA1, with the first set tested and shown to meet all requirements.

Canadian SKA Regional Centre (can|SRC) Update

In March, the SKAO governing Council endorsed the formation of the ~5-year SRCNet Project. The initial focus is on the development and delivery of SRCNet v0.1, the first implementation of a collaborative, federated international network of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) that will be essential for transforming SKA observations into scientific insights.  The goal of SRCNet v0.1 is to demonstrate the basic capabilities and operation of such a network in time to allow community access to the initial science verification data from AA2. In the long run SRCNet will form the SKA science archive, and also provide much of the processing power needed to turn raw data into the advanced data products needed for SKA science.

The Canadian SKA Regional Centre (can|SRC) will provide user data access, support, and archive services by building on the Canadian Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR) science platform, which is maintained by the CADC using Digital Research Alliance of Canada (Alliance) hardware and CANARIE network services. can|SRC has been selected as one of the five key data centres around the world that will form SRCNet v0.1.   This milestone was achieved through a collaboration agreement between NRC and the Alliance, enabling the necessary computing and storage capacity for can|SRC. This new SRCNet v0.1 capacity is expected to be operational on CANFAR by late fall 2024.

This spring, CANFAR was chosen as the prototype Science Platform for SRCNet v0.1. Additionally, a number of SRC nodes have agreed to contribute significant effort towards integrating the Rucio storage system with CANFAR. Rucio, a data distribution management tool used by CERN, will be implemented for SRCNet v0.1. The goal is to have v0.1 ready for internal data transfers and computing tests by January 2025, with the further aim of supporting scientific test users in v0.3, scheduled for release in Spring 2026.

NRC-HAA is currently hiring a number of developers, as well as at least one radio astronomer to support can|SRC development.  Several additional community-facing astronomy positions will be advertised shortly, aimed at supporting effective access to SKA data by scientists across Canada.  These astronomers will provide information on (and take suggestions for) SKA and can|SRC capabilities and opportunities, and  supervise/mentor the Canadian SKA Scientists discussed above in partnership with university faculty. Job ads for these positions will be widely circulated within the Canadian astronomical community.

For more information, updates, and opportunities to get involved:

CFHT News and Updates

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By Nadine Manset (Director of Science Operations, on behalf of the CFHT ‘ohana)
(Cassiopeia – Summer 2024)

The Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope will be 45 years old in August! Strong with experience and expertise, we are planning the upcoming 10 years to continue serving our communities. CFHT’s mission is to provide you with a versatile and state-of-the-art astronomical observing facility that is well-matched to your scientific goals and fully utilizes the potential of the Maunakea site.

As CFHT approaches the end of the current Maunakea lease, we plan to spend the remainder of this decade working in close consultation with the newly formed Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority (MKSOA), our Hawaiʻi community, and our astronomy community to build a collaborative future that we hope results in the continuation and upgrade of CFHT on Maunakea past 2033.

The four pillars of CFHT’s strategy revolve around successfully operating CFHT for at least 10 more years, engaging with the local community in Hawaiʻi, raising awareness in the astronomy community of the need to change the way we practice our profession, and advancing the design work for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE), which remains our long-term objective.

Operational Component of the 10-year Plan

The operational component of the plan adopted consists of implementing Wenaokeao formerly known as VISION, the co-mount of  ESPaDOnS and SPIRou, starting in 2025, followed by the decommissioning of WIRCam and SITELLE at the end of 2026B. The optomechanical interface Wenaokeao will allow the use of SPIRou only (no intervening optics), ESPaDOnS only (using relay optics), or both SPIRou and ESPaDOnS simultaneously (using a beam splitter).

On the development side, we continue the design of the CFHT-IFU, contingent on grant approval, and advance the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer design.

On the science side, we are increasing the fraction of time dedicated to Large Programs for the 2025A – 2026B period and planning for a major scientific survey that will follow.

In early 2024, we opened a call for Large Programs (LP) to use up to 400 nights from 2025A to 2026B. Out of the 6 proposals received, the one(s) selected will be announced in the fall.

Given the remarkable success of the CFHTLS, we are considering having another major scientific survey, defined by the community (as opposed to teams centered around a single PI), to follow this upcoming round of LP. This major effort would extend over 4 or 5 years and be carried on MegaCam and/or Wenaokeao. Since this has to be community-driven, a call for ideas will be issued and we already welcome your suggestions.

To share your thoughts, feel free to send an email to manset@cfht.hawaii.edu.