Category Archives: News and Announcements

Submitted by Gregg Wade
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

Introduction

BRITE-Constellation (where BRITE stands for BRIght Target Explorer) is a network of five nanosatellites operating in low Earth orbit, designed to explore the properties of the brightest stars in the night sky.

The BRITE mission is supported by three countries — Canada, Austria and Poland — where Canadian funding comes mainly from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the prime contractor is the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies – Spaceflight Laboratory (UTIAS-SFL).  The mission was planned to have 6 BRITE nanosats, a pair from each partner country, but one of the Canadian nanosats did not detach from the third stage of its launch vehicle.

Each BRITE nanosat (mass = 7 kg; dimensions 20 × 20 × 20 cm) has a 3-cm optical telescope feeding a CCD detector. The Constellation was designed to monitor photometrically through blue and red filters the brightness and temperature variations of stars generally brighter than V ~ 4 with precision, cadence and time coverage not possible from the ground.  Each BRITE instrument has an enormous field-of-view: 24° square, large enough to encompass the entire constellation of Orion (but at a resolution of only about half an arcminute per pixel). That means BRITE-Constellation can collect data on several dozens of stars simultaneously.

The sample of the apparently brightest stars in the night sky is a sample dominated by the most intrinsically luminous stars in the Galaxy: hot massive stars at all evolutionary stages, and evolved intermediate-mass stars at the very end of their nuclear-burning phases. The main goals of BRITE-Constellation are to (1) measure the frequencies of pulsations (both acoustic and gravity modes) to probe the interiors and ages of stars through asteroseismology; (2) measure the rotational modulation of stars due to star spots carried across their disks; (3) search for exoplanets through transits; and (4) obtain light curves of massive eclipsing binaries.  While goal (2) is often associated with cool solar-type stars, spots in the photospheres of luminous stars could be the sources of co-rotating interaction regions in the winds, possibly arising from magnetic subsurface convection in hot, massive stars.

Ten data releases to BRITE Target PIs have occurred so far. The first was a set of science commissioning data, including about 5 months of quasi-continuous observation of 15 stars in Orion. Subsequent releases were 6-month campaigns of fields in Centaurus and Lupus (30 stars), Sagittarius (18 stars), Cygnus (37 stars), and Perseus (31 stars). Orion was observed again. Most recently, a field in Vela and Puppis was observed (20 stars). Data from the recently-completed Scorpius (26 stars), Cygnus-II (34 stars) and Cassiopeia/Cepheus (25 stars) fields have just been released.

The first BRITE science results have been accepted in refereed journals: Three science papers by Weiss et al. on the pulsating magnetic star alpha Cir, by Baade et al. on the short-term variability and mass loss of the Be stars mu and eta Cen, and by Pigulski et al. on the triple system beta Cen (a complex system containing at least one beta Cep pulsator) have been published together in issue 588 of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The first BRITE science conference, “Science with BRITE Constellation: Initial Results” took place during 14 – 18 September 2015 in Gdansk Sobieszewo, Poland.  Presentations authorised for public release are available on the conference website. The next BRITE science workshop is planned from 22-26 August in Innsbruck, Austria.

A workshop related to a large-scale spectropolarimetric survey of BRITE targets was held at the Meudon
Observatory on October 26-30, with 19 participants. The BRITE spectropolarimetric survey is proceeding nominally, with expected completion in March 2016. Magnetic field has been detected in 47 stars so far, and follow-up observations are being acquired or planned for many of them. Two papers have already been published (Shultz et al. 2015, Neiner et al. 2015) and many others are in preparation. A second BRITE spectropolarimetric workshop will be organized from 14-18 November 2016 at the same location.

Mission Management and Contact

Executive decisions about the mission are made by the BEST (BRITE Executive Science Team), consisting of representatives from all three partner nations. The Canadian BEST members are Jaymie Matthews (UBC), Tony Moffat (Université de Montréal), Slavek Rucinski (University of Toronto), and Gregg Wade (BEST Vice-Chair, Royal Military College), with Jason Rowe (Université de Montréal) and Stefan Mochnacki (University of Toronto) serving as non-voting BEST members.

Setting priorities on BRITE targets and science goals was overseen by BEST, with input from the BRITE International Science Advisory Team (BIAST), consisting of 130 astronomers around the globe. Interested in joining BIAST, to participate in data analysis, and receive monthly mission updates?  Please contact BEST through Gregg Wade (wade-g@rmc.ca).

Baade, D.; Rivinius, Th.; Pigulski, A.; Carciofi, A. C.; Martayan, Ch.; Moffat, A. F. J.; Wade, G. A.; Weiss, W. W.; Grunhut, J.; Handler, G.; Kuschnig, R.; Mehner, A.; Pablo, H.; Popowicz, A.; Rucinski, S.; Whittaker, G., 2016, “Short-term variability and mass loss in Be stars. I. BRITE satellite photometry of η and μ Centauri”, A&A, 588, 56

Neiner, C.; Buysschaert, B.; Oksala, M.E.; Blazère, A., 2015, “Discovery of two new bright magnetic B stars: i Car and Atlas”, MNRAS 454, 56

Pigulski, A.; Cugier, H.; Popowicz, A.; Kuschnig, R.; Moffat, A. F. J.; Rucinski, S. M.; Schwarzenberg-Czerny, A.; Weiss, W. W.; Handler, G.; Wade, G. A.; Koudelka, O.; Matthews, J. M.; Mochnacki, St.; Orleański, P.; Pablo, H.; Ramiaramanantsoa, T.; Whittaker, G.; Zocłońska, E.; Zwintz, K.; 2016, “Massive pulsating stars observed by BRITE-Constellation. I. The triple system beta Centauri (Agena)”, A&A, 588, 55

Shultz, M.; Rivinius, Th.; Folsom, C. P.; Wade, G. A.; Townsend, R. H. D.; Sikora, J.; Grunhut, J.; Stahl, O.; and the MiMeS Collaboration, “The magnetic field and spectral variability of the He-weak star HR 2949”, 2015, MNRAS 449, 3945

Weiss, W.W.; Rucinski, S.M.; Moffat, A.F.J.; Schwarzenberg-Czerny, A.; Koudelka, O.F.; Grant, C.C.; Zee, R.E.; Kuschnig, R.; Mochnacki, St.; Matthews, J.M.; Orleanski, P.; Pamyatnykh, A.; Pigulski, A.; Alves, J.; Guedel, M.; Handler, G.; Wade, G.A.; Zwintz, K., 2014, “BRITE-Constellation: Nanosatellites for Precision Photometry of Bright Stars”, PASP 126, 573.

Weiss, W.W.; Frohlich, H.-E.; Pigulski, A.; Popowicz, A.; Huber, D.; Kuschnig, R.; Moffat, A.F.J.; Matthews, J.M.;, Saio, H.; Schwarzenberg-Czerny, A.; Grant, C; Koudelka, O.; Lueftinger, T.; Rucinski, S.; Wade, G.A.; Alves, J.; Guedel, M.; Handler, G.; Mochnacki, S.; Orleanski, P.;, Pablo, B.; Pamyatnykh, A.; Ramiaramanantsoa, T; Rowe, J.; Whittaker, G.; Zawistowski, T.; Zoconska, E.; Zwintz, K., 2016, “The roAp star alpha Cir seen by BRITE-Constellation”, A&A, 588, 54

From/de Denis Laurin, Senior Program Scientist, Space astronomy, Space Exploration development, CSA,
with contributions from/avec des contributions de Jean Dupuis, Senior mission scientist, and Vinothini Sangaralingam, Visiting Fellow (CSA / NSERC)
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

La version française suit

New Government

Following the elections in October, with a majority Liberal government, is the introduction of the new Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (Minister Hon. Navdeep Bains). The Canadian Space Agency reports to this Ministry (formerly to the Ministry of Industry). The nomination of Hon. Kristy Duncan as Minster of Science should also be noted. Mandate letters from the Prime Minister to these ministers are viewable: the mandate letter to Hon. Bains and the mandate letter to Hon. Duncan. It is worth noting the expectations to create a Chief Science Officer, making science fully available to Canadians. Sylvain Laporte has been the CSA President since February 2015.

CASCA LRP and MTR

For establishing priorities, validating plans and updating long-term space mission roadmaps, the input of the community is very important to CSA. The CASCA Long Range Plan provides this coordinated input of science priorities, alignment with Canadian capacity and international opportunities. CSA appreciated the opportunity to comment on the review process and will consider the recommendations of the Mid-term Review.

WFIRST Opportunity

As described in the LRP, participation in NASA’s mission on Dark Energy survey and exoplanet imaging, WFIRST, is considered a high priority opportunity. In 2014, CSA completed mission contribution studies to evaluate a number of possible options. Continued discussions with NASA has narrowed down the options and CSA is currently advertising a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Phase 0 (study) that will provide more details on feasibility, cost, and schedule, and better evaluate these options. (The RFP is currently open on buyandsell.gc.ca and any questions related to the call must be directed at PWGSC as indicated in the RFP.)

Launch of ASTROSAT

Contributed by Jean Dupuis, Senior Mission Scientist, CSA

ISRO’s first astronomy mission, the X-ray and UV space observatory ASTROSAT was successfully launched on 28 September 2015. It carries a Canadian contribution, the UVIT imager assembly and readout electronics. The mission is in the performance verification phase (first 6 months) and has so far demonstrated excellent functionality. A six-month period of Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) for the science instrument teams will follow. A Guest Observer program will start about one year after launch for which 5% of the observing time is reserved for Canada. Science support to UVIT is provided by the University of Calgary team (Joe Postma and Denis Leahy) and by John Hutchings at NRC-Herzberg.

Launch of ASTRO-H (Hitomi)

JAXA launched its X-ray observatory ASTRO-H (now named Hitomi) on Feb 17, 2016. The launch could be watched live on YouTube and some Canadians were present on site to witness a flawless launch to orbit. The spacecraft is in the commission (verification) phase. Canada’s contribution is the Canadian ASTRO-H Metrology System (CAMS) by Neptec Design Group (Ottawa). The CAMS units consist of two main components: a laser transmitter with receiver optics and retro-reflective targets, to monitor the translation and rotation of the Hard X-ray telescope (HXT) extendable boom. Details are available on CSA website.

The Canadian scientists part of the Japanese Hitomi team are Dr. Luigi Gallo, Principal Investigator for CAMS, of Saint Mary’s University; Dr. Brian McNamara of the University of Waterloo; and Dr. Samar Safi-Harb of the University of Manitoba.

JWST preparations

contributed by Jean Dupuis

The project is progressing well with the recent completion of the third cryogenic vacuum test campaign (CV3) held at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The Canadian JWST team is busy completing the analysis of the data obtained during the test campaign and getting ready for the next test campaign to be held next year at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) with the flight telescope. With launch approaching (October 2018) the team is also making necessary preparations for commissioning and operations. The FGS/NIRISS science team is also actively planning proposals for the utilization of the Guaranteed Time Observation (GTO) granted to the team in return for Canada’s contribution to JWST (450 hours). A GTO workshop will be held May 17-19 at NRC-Herzberg in Victoria, BC, for all the JWST science instrument teams. A JWST science conference open to all Canadian astronomers will be held at the Université de Montréal Oct 24-28. Your participation is highly encouraged. At least 5% of the observing time will be allocated to Canadian proposals during the JWST Guest Observer program and this conference will be an excellent opportunity for future users of JWST to learn about the capabilities of this powerful observatory and to think about and promote potential projects. CSA is exploring with CADC the possibility of hosting a mirror of the JWST archive in Canada

MOST archive

Contributed by Dr. Vinothini Sangaralingam, Visiting Fellow (CSA / NSERC).

The MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) microsatellite collected ultraprecise photometry of thousands of targets for almost 11 years as a Canadian Space Agency mission since 2003. Stars dominate the target list, but the sample includes Solar System planets and asteroids, totaling 268 primary targets with more than 4000 secondary targets in the V magnitude from -1 to 16.

AMSA (Advanced MOST Science data Archive) will be a repository of the decade long data obtained by the MOST satellite and its data products as produced by the MOST science team and its direct collaborators. AMSA will be accessible on the CADC (Canadian Astronomical Data Centre) servers using their Advanced Search (AS) protocols. Archive users can search and download the data base using extensive parameters (Target name, PI Name, Sky co-ordinates, etc.) available through the AS webpage. MOST data available through AMSA would have potential value to the community on par with the ASAS & HIPPARCOS catalogues of stellar optical time series, in terms of metadata, access and searchability.

The technical end of this project in terms of database development, access and restrictions, storage and security, front-end portals have been achieved within the CADC`s CAOM architecture. Currently, work is in progress uploading the raw and reformatted (to conform to CAOM requirements) data from CSA servers to CADC servers. The reduced light curves are being uploaded by the MOST science team and its archivist simultaneously. This is expected to be complete by the end of March and testing of this database will begin in April, 2016. The MOST Science Team will soon release publicly all MOST Guide Star photometry (3030 light curves) along with the published light curves through this archive. However, proprietary data will become available once a publication has been made on the data or when the light curves are released by the PI.

I’d like to acknowledge the excellent efforts provided by Vinothini Sangaralingam, working at CSA in collaboration with Université de Montréal, and also by David Bohlender at CADC in implementing this archive, and of course the MOST PI Jaymie Matthews and the science team for their continued collaboration. – D. Laurin

FAST Program

The objectives of the Flights and Fieldwork for the Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST) program is to support Canadian university research projects that offer hands-on experience to students, post-docs (and other HQP) in “space-like” missions. The Announcement of Opportunity issued in July 2015 called for proposals in planetary exploration, space astronomy, life science, earth systems, and solar-terrestrial disciplines. The AO closed on October 16 and results of 18 grant awards were announced in mid-February. It is noted that 3 grants were awarded in astronomy (in the $500K category) namely: “Cosmology from the Stratosphere – Gravitational waves and Gravitational lensing with Spider and SuperBIT” (Univ. of Toronto); “A cryogenic far-infrared Fabry-Perot interferometer as a potential Canadian contribution to the SPICA Safari instrument” (Univ of Lethbridge); “HiCIBaS – High-Contrast Imaging Balloon System” (Univ Laval). Details about CSA grant awards are posted here.

Topical Teams

Last summer the CSA issued a call for proposals to form specific topical teams (TT) in space sciences (space astronomy, planetary science and human space health). Excellent proposals were received and resulted in the formation of 8 topical teams. (These are similar to Discipline Working Groups supported in 2007-2009). In space astronomy there a 3 topical teams: 1) “Origins” (31 members) chaired by Roberto Abraham, University of Toronto. This team includes three sub-disciplines: Galaxies (Mike Balogh, University of Waterloo); Stars (Jeremy Heyl, UBC); Exoplanets (Nick Cowan, McGill). 2) “Cosmology” (21 members) chaired by Douglas Scott, University of British Columbia. This team includes two sub-disciplines: CMB (Douglas Scott, UBC); dark energy (Mike Hudson, University of Waterloo). 3) “High Energy Astrophysics” (26 members) chaired by Luigi Gallo, Saint Mary’s University.

Kick-off meetings (telecoms) were held in mid-December. The purpose of the TT, over a period of about 1.5 year, is to deliver a report of updated community science priorities in Space Exploration specific to the TT. This will be an important reference document for CSA Space Exploration. There are plans to prepare a Canadian Space Exploration Workshop in the Fall (TBC), where results can be presented. The space astronomy teams will consider objectives and investigations for missions that will be launched mid-2020’s and beyond and is assumed to remain aligned with the CASCA LRP. Prioritization criteria are to be described. The final report will be a consolidated summary of all the space science topical teams.

NASA is forming Science and Technology Definition Teams (STDT), a community-based process to identify (four) concepts for the next large (flagship) mission in space astronomy (post JWST, post WFIRST). The results will feed the next US Decadal Plan. The call for nominations was extended to international participation. NASA invited Canadians to join, through CSA. Members of the existing TT matching the four NASA concepts were selected as observers to the corresponding STDTs. Namely: Nicolas Cowan for LUVOIR, Christian Marois for Exoplanet Imaging, Douglas Scott for Far IR Surveyor and Brian McNamara for X-ray Surveyor. More background information can be found on NASA COPAG webpages.

STDP

Under CSA’s Space Technology Development Program (STDP), aimed at increasing Canadian industrial capabilities in space activities, two contracts related to space astronomy were awarded in the last few months. The first aimed at further increasing the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the EMCDD read-out for space imaging (with Nuvu Camera, Montreal). The second is for developing cryogenic translation mechanism for future FIR astronomy missions (with ABB, Quebec). It is worth noting also the near completion of a STDP work on the assessment of large UV-enhanced CMOS detectors for wide field missions (e.g. CASTOR), reporting good results on detector performance (by COMDEV, Ottawa).

The JCSA committee

The next JCSA meeting is planned to follow CASCA Meeting in Winnipeg, 3 June. The current membership consists of: JJ Kavelaars, (NRC Herzberg), co-Chair; Andrew Cumming (McGill); Sarah Gallagher (UWO); Marcin Sawicki (SMU); Sabine Stanley (UofT); and Denis Laurin as CSA co-Chair.

Wishing everyone a great spring!

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Un nouveau gouvernement

Dans la foulée des élections d’octobre dernier, avec un gouvernement Libéral majoritaire, il y a eu création du nouveau Ministère de l’Innovation, de la Science et du développement économique (l’Honorable Navdeep Bain, ministre). L’ASC se rapporte à ce ministère (anciennement au Ministère de l’Industrie). À noter aussi, la nomination de l’Honorable Kristy Duncan comme ministre de la Science. Les lettres de mandat du Premier Ministre à ces ministres sont accessibles, notamment: la lettre à l’Hon. Bains ; et la lettre à l’Hon. Duncan. Il est à noter les attentes de la création d’un Officier en chef de la Science de façon à rendre la science complètement accessible aux Canadiens. Sylvain Laporte est président de l’ASC depuis février 2015.

CASCA PLT et revue à mi-parcours

Afin d’établir des priorités, la validation de plans et la mise-à-jour du calendrier des missions spatiales à long terme, avoir des entrées dans la communauté est très important pour l’ASC. Le Plan à long terme (PLT) de la CASCA nous permet d’avoir cette entrée coordonnée des priorités scientifiques, de s’enligner sur la capacité canadienne et les opportunités internationales. L’ASC appréciait l’opportunité d’émettre des commentaires pendant le processus de révision et prendra en considération les recommandations de la revue à mi-parcours.

Opportunité WFIRST

Tel que décrit dans le PLT, la participation à la mission d’investigation sur l’énergie sombre et d’imagerie des exoplanètes WFIRST est considérée comme une opportunité à grande priorité. En 2015, l’ASC a complété des études de contributions de mission afin d’évaluer un nombre d’options possibles. Des discussions suivies avec la NASA ont rétréci les options et l’ASC annonce actuellement une Demande de Proposition (DDP) pour Phase 0 (étude) qui offrira plus de détails dans la faisabilité, coût, calendrier et pour mieux évaluer ces options. (La DDP est en ce moment ouverte sur buyandsell.gc.ca et toute question en rapport avec l’appel doit être dirigée vers le TPGSC comme indiqué dans le DDP.

Lancement de la mission ASTROSAT

Contribué par Jean Dupuis, Scientifique principal de missions, ASC.

Première mission d’astronomie de l’ISRO, l’observatoire spatial en rayons-X et UV, ASTROSAT, a été lancé avec succès le 28 septembre 2015. À bord se trouve une contribution canadienne: l’électronique de lecture de l’imageur pour l’instrument UVIT. La mission est en phase de vérification du rendement (6 premiers mois) et a, jusqu’à présent, démontré une excellente fonctionnalité. Une période de six mois d’observation de temps garanti (GTO) pour les équipes de l’instrument scientifique suivra. Un programme pour observateurs invités va commencer environ un an après le lancement dans lequel 5% du temps d’observation est réservé pour le Canada. Le soutien scientifique à UVIT est fourni par l’équipe de l’Université de Calgary (Joe Postma et Denis Leahy) et par John Hutchings au CNRC-Herzberg.

Lancement de la mission ASTRO-H (Hitomi)

JAXA a lancé son observatoire à rayons-X ASTRO-H (maintenant appelé Hitomi) le 17 février 2016. Le lancement a pu être regardé en direct sur YouTube et certains Canadiens étaient présents sur place pour assister à ce lancement sans faille. Le satellite est présentement dans la phase de vérification. La contribution du Canada est le Système canadien de métrologie ASTRO-H (CAMS) par Neptec Design Group (Ottawa). Les unités de CAMS se composent de deux éléments principaux: un émetteur laser avec récepteur optique et des cibles rétro-réfléchissantes, pour surveiller le déplacement et la rotation du télescope à rayons-X durs (HXT) à l’extrémité d’un mat extensible. Les détails sont disponibles sur le site web de l’ASC.

Les scientifiques canadiens faisant partie de l’équipe japonaise Hitomi sont : Dr Luigi Gallo, chercheur principal de CAMS, de l’Université Saint Mary’s; Dr Brian McNamara de l’Université de Waterloo; et le Dr Samar Safi-Harb de l’Université du Manitoba.

Préparations au JWST

Contribué par Jean Dupuis

Le projet progresse bien avec l’achèvement récent de la troisième campagne d’essais sous vide cryogénique (CV3) tenue au Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). L’équipe canadienne de JWST effectue l’analyse des données obtenues au cours de la campagne de tests et se prépare pour la prochaine campagne d’épreuves sur le télescope, qui aura lieu l’année prochaine au Centre spatial Johnson (JSC). Avec le lancement qui approche (octobre 2018) l’équipe se prépare également aux activités menant à la mise en service et des opérations. L’équipe scientifique du FGS / NIRISS se prépare activement pour les propositions pour l’utilisation du temps garanti d’observations (GTO) accordés à l’équipe en contrepartie de la contribution du Canada au JWST (450 heures). Un atelier de GTO aura lieu du 17 au 19 mai au CNRC-Herzberg à Victoria, en Colombie-Britannique, pour toutes les équipes des instruments scientifiques. Une conférence scientifique JWST ouverte à tous les astronomes canadiens aura lieu à l’Université de Montréal du 24 au 28 octobre. Votre participation est fortement encouragée. Au moins 5% du temps d’observation sera alloué aux propositions canadiennes au cours du programme JWST Guest Observer et cette conférence sera une excellente occasion pour les futurs utilisateurs de JWST d’en apprendre davantage sur les capacités de cet observatoire puissant et d’élaborer et promouvoir des projets potentiels. L’ASC étudie avec le CADC la possibilité d’accueillir une archive miroir des données JWST au Canada.

L’archive des données MOST

Contribué par Vinothini Sangaralingam, Boursière postdoc (ASC / CRSNG)

Le télescope spatial MOST (Microvariabilité & Oscillations STellaires), une mission de l’Agence spatiale canadienne depuis 2003, a recueilli des données photométriques ultra-précises de milliers de cibles sur une période de plus d’une décennie. Il fonctionne encore après près de 13 ans en orbite. MOST a observé 268 cibles scientifiques primaires avec environ 4000 autres cibles de V-magnitude -3 à 16. Les étoiles dominent la liste des cibles, mais les données MOST comprennent également les planètes extrasolaires et des astéroïdes, et même un AGN.

AMSA (Advanced MOST Science data Archive) sera un référentiel des données brutes obtenues par le satellite MOST au cours des années d’opérations avec l’ASC et des données réduites (par exemple, les courbes de lumière) générées par l’équipe scientifiques et opérateurs de MOST. La plupart des données disponibles via AMSA auront une valeur potentielle pour la communauté à égalité avec les catalogues ASAS & HIPPARCOS de séries temporelles stellaires optiques, en termes de métadonnées, d’accès et d’engin de recherche.

AMSA sera accessible sur les serveurs du CADC (Centre canadien de données astronomiques) à l’aide de leurs protocoles de recherche avancée (AS). AMSA sera consultable (et les données téléchargeables) par un large éventail de paramètres de recherche (par exemple, l’ID de la cible, coordonnées célestes, nom du chercheur principal) disponibles via la recherche avancée.

Le développement de la base de données, l’accès et les restrictions, le stockage et les aspects de sécurité, ainsi que les portails ont été mis en œuvre dans l’architecture CAOM du CADC. À l’heure actuelle, le téléchargement de données brutes et reformatées (se conformant aux exigences du CAOM) est en cours, à partir des serveurs de l’ASC vers les serveurs CADC. En même temps, les courbes de lumière réduites sont téléchargées par l’équipe scientifique MOST et l’analyste et archiviste de MOST. Ces tâches devraient être terminées d’ici la fin mars 2016 et les tests de l’AMSA commenceront en avril.

L’équipe scientifique de MOST sera bientôt prête à publier toutes les données photométriques des étoiles de guidage MOST (3030 des courbes de lumière). Les courbes de lumières qui apparaissent dans des publications à comité de lecture sont déjà dans le domaine public, mais AMSA va les rendre plus facilement accessibles aux utilisateurs. La plupart des données protégées seront rendues publiques suite à leur publication arbitrée, ou si la courbe de lumière est libérée par le chercheur principal.

Pour de plus amples informations sur la mission MOST et la disponibilité des données, s’il vous plaît contacter le scientifique de la mission MOST: Jaymie Matthews (UBC) à matthews@astro.ubc.ca

Je voudrais souligner les excellents efforts fournis par Vinothini Sangaralingam, travaillant à l’ASC en collaboration avec l’Université de Montréal, et aussi par David Bohlender de CADC pour mettre en œuvre cette archive, et bien sûr le scientifique principal de MOST Jaymie Matthews et son équipe scientifique, pour leur collaboration soutenue. – D. Laurin

Programme VITES

Les objectifs du programme « Vols et investigations-terrain en technologies et sciences spatiales » (VITES) est de soutenir les projets canadiens de recherche universitaire qui offrent une expérience pratique pour les étudiants, postdoctorats (et d’autres PHQ) dans les missions “analogues à l’espace”. L’avis d’offre publié en juillet 2015 a fait appel à des propositions dans l’exploration planétaire, l’astronomie spatiale, sciences de la vie, les systèmes terrestres et discipline Soleil-Terre. L’AO a fermé le 16 octobre. Les résultats pour les 18 subventions ont été annoncés à la mi-février. Il est à noter que parmi celles-ci 3 subventions ont été accordées dans le domaine de l’astronomie (dans la catégorie 500K$): “Cosmology from the Stratosphere – Gravitational waves and Gravitational lensing with Spider and SuperBIT” (Université de Toronto); “A cryogenic far-infrared Fabry-Perot interferometer as a potential Canadian contribution to the SPICA Safari instrument” (Université de Lethbridge); ” HiCIBaS – High-Contrast Imaging Balloon System” (Université Laval). Les détails concernant ces subventions octroyées de l’ASC sont affichés ici.

Équipes thématiques («Topical Teams» ou TT)

L’été dernier, l’ASC a publié un appel de propositions pour former des équipes spécifiques de thèmes (TT) scientifiques en sciences spatiales (astronomie spatiale, science planétaire et de la santé humaine de l’espace). D’excellentes propositions ont été reçues et ont abouti à la formation de 8 équipes. (L’approche est semblable aux groupes de travail disciplinaires soutenus en 2007-2009). Dans l’astronomie spatiale, il y a 3 équipes thématiques. 1) “Origines” (31 membres), présidée par Roberto Abraham, Université de Toronto. Cette équipe comprend trois sous-disciplines: Galaxies (Mike Balogh, Université de Waterloo), Étoiles (Jeremy Heyl, UBC) et Exoplanètes (Nick Cowan, McGill). 2) “Cosmology” (21 membres), présidée par Douglas Scott, Université de la Colombie-Britannique. Cette équipe comprend deux sous-disciplines: CMB (Douglas Scott, UBC) et Énergie sombre (Mike Hudson, Université de Waterloo). 3) “Astrophysique des hautes énergies” (26 membres) présidée par Luigi Gallo, l’Université Saint Mary’s.

Les coups d’envoi ont eu lieu à la mi-décembre. Le but des TT, sur une période d’environ 1,5 année, est de fournir un rapport de mise à jour des priorités scientifiques de la communauté dans l’exploration spatiale spécifiques à chaque TT. Ce sera un document de référence important pour l’exploration spatiale de l’ASC. Il est prévu de préparer un atelier canadien sur l’exploration spatiale à l’automne (à confirmer), où les résultats seront présentés. Les équipes d’astronomie spatiale examineront les objectifs et les investigations pour des missions qui seront lancées mi-2020 et au-delà et tout en restant alignées avec le PLT de la CASCA. Les critères de priorisation doivent être décrits. Le rapport final sera un résumé consolidé de toutes les sciences spatiales mentionnées auparavant.

La NASA forme des équipes «Science and Technology Definition Teams (STDT)», un processus communautaire pour identifier les (quatre) concepts pour la prochaine grande mission en astronomie spatiale (après JWST, après WFIRST). Les résultats alimenteront le prochain plan décennal américain. L’appel de candidatures a été étendu à une participation internationale. NASA a invité les Canadiens à se joindre, par l’entremise de l’ASC. Des membres des TT en place ont été choisis en tant qu’observateurs aux STDTs correspondants aux quatre concepts de la NASA. Plus précisément: Nicolas Cowan pour LUVOIR, Christian Marois pour Exoplanet Imaging, Douglas Scott pour Far IR Surveyor et Brian McNamara pour X-ray Surveyor. Plus plus d’amples informations consulter les pages web de NASA COPAG.

PDTS

En vertu du programme de développement de la technologie spatiale de l’ASC (PDTS), visant à accroître les capacités industrielles canadiennes dans les activités spatiales, deux contrats liés à l’astronomie spatiale ont été attribués au cours des derniers mois: le premier vise à accroître davantage le niveau de maturité technologique (NMT) du système électronique de lecture du EMCCD pour l’imagerie de l’espace (avec caméra Nuvu Caméra, Montréal); le deuxième est pour le développement de mécanisme de translation cryogénique pour les futures missions d’astronomie en infra-rouge lointain (avec ABB, Québec). Il est à noter également l’achèvement prochain d’un ouvrage de PDTS sur l’évaluation des grands détecteurs CMOS améliorés en UV pour des missions d’imagerie à larges champs (par exemple CASTOR), qui rapporte de bons résultats sur la performance de ces détecteurs (par COMDEV, Ottawa).

Le comité JCSA

La prochaine réunion du JCSA suivra la réunion de la CASCA à Winnipeg, le 3 juin. La composition actuelle de ce comité: JJ Kavelaars (Herzberg), coprésident; Andrew Cumming (McGill); Sarah Gallagher (UWO); Marcin Sawicki (SMU); Sabine Stanley (UdeT); et Denis Laurin (ASC), coprésident.

En vous souhaitant à tous et à toutes un agréable printemps!

From/de Robert Lamontagne
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

La version française suit

The Centre for Research in Astrophysics of Québec (CRAQ) is announcing its first Summer School, which will be held on August 24-26th in Montréal, Québec.

This year’s topic is “The Astrophysics of Compact Objects”. During this 3-day school you will learn both theoretical and observational aspects of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. This summer school will include formal lectures from local and international experts in the field, as well as laboratories on data handling and analysis.

The CRAQ Summer School is principally aimed at graduate students in the field of physics, astronomy, and astrophysics, although students who have finished at least the last year of an undergraduate program in physics will also be accepted.

There is no registration fee. However, we cannot offer traveling funds or cover lodging expenses. Lodging at a reasonable cost will be made available to the participants on the university campus.

If you are interested, please fill in the required fields at the following address:
craq-astro.ca/summerschool.

Email contact: Summer.School@craq-astro.ca

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Le Centre de recherche en astrophysique du Québec (CRAQ) annonce sa première école d’été, qui aura lieu du 24 au 26 août à Montréal, Québec.

Le thème de cette année est « L’astrophysique des objets compacts ». Au cours de cette école d’une durée de 3 jours, les aspects théoriques et observationnels des naines blanches, des étoiles à neutrons et des trous noirs seront abordés. Cette école d’été comprendra des présentations formelles offertes en anglais par des experts locaux et internationaux dans le domaine, ainsi que des laboratoires sur le traitement et l’analyse des données.

L’école d’été du CRAQ s’adresse principalement à des étudiants aux cycles supérieurs dans le domaine de la physique, de l’astronomie et de l’astrophysique. Les étudiants ayant complété la dernière année du programme de premier cycle en physique seront également acceptés.

Il n’y a aucun frais d’inscription. Cependant, nous ne pouvons offrir de subside pour couvrir les frais de déplacement ou d’hébergement. Des chambres à coût abordable sur le campus de l’université seront disponibles pour les participants.

Si vous êtes intéressés, veuillez remplir les champs requis à l’adresse suivante :
craq-astro.ca/summerschool/index_fr.php.

Courriel: Summer.School@craq-astro.ca

De/from Sylvie Beaulieu, Herschel-HIFI Instrument Support Scientist
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

Herschel Science Archive (HSA)

The latest Herschel Science Archive is v.7.1.1. It was released on 8 February 2016. In this release, you will find links from individual observations associated to refereed publications. This feature is accessible from the query result page in the HSA User Interface by selecting the “DETAILS & PUBLICATIONS” button, and then clicking on the tab “Publications”. Footprints for photometric observations (PACS & SPIRE) greatly improve the accuracy of geometrical searches. Herschel data are 100% public domain.

Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE)

The current HIPE release is version 14.0.1, with HIFI_CAL_24_0 as its latest Calibration Tree. All changes included in this release are highlighted in the What’s New in HIPE page. Additional information can be found in the HIFI Instrument and Calibration page. In April, the HSC will release HIPE 14.1. Further details can be found below but your main source of information about changes in HIPE is from the links included above.

What’s New in HIPE 14.1

The changes highlighted below reflect changes that occurred in the developper’s track but that are coming up in 14.1. We invite you to continue to monitor the What’s New in HIPE for future changes.

While working on the Expert Reduced Products, the calibration team discovered that in HIPE 14.0 the flag SPUR_WARNING, which is meant to be just a warning, is actually being honoured in the fitBaseline task. For data that contain this flag, the task will simply ignore the data without allowing you to decide if the warning is severe enough to justify an automatic rejection of the data concerned. The task has been corrected in 14.1 to allow you to display the data with its SPUR_WARNING mask. The onus is then on you to decide if the data with the SPUR_WARNING flag need to be rejected. The task fitBaseline allows you to add a mask (using a flag like IGNORE_DATA) on the bad data. We invite you to consult the HIFI Data Reduction Guide for further information on the details of running the task fitBaseline.

Documentation

Herschel documentation can be accessed through HIPE and the HSC and has been updated to version 14.0.1. Eventually, you will be able to access the Herschel Explanatory Legacy Library as the permanent site for all documentations related to Herschel. The release date is not yet available at the time of writing this newsletter. For the moment, we advise you to visit the HSC page on a regular basis.

University of Waterloo Group News

By the time you read this news segment, the Herschel-HIFI Waterloo group will be shutting down, ceasing operation on the 31st of March 2016. Although no support will be available from that date via the Waterloo group, we will try to maintain the webpage live, and as up-to-date as possible. All links to data reduction and documentation will eventually be pointing to the Herschel Science Centre (HSC) at the European Space Agency. Any enquiries should be redirected to the HSC Helpdesk.

The implementation of the Herschel Explanatory Legacy Library (HELL) is progressing well but is not yet available to the public at the time of writing this news segment. Permanent links to the ESA Herschel Project and to the Herschel Explanatory Legacy Library will be available through our webpage as soon as a release date is announced.

The University of Waterloo Herschel HIFI Support Group highly encourages you to continue to browse through the wonderful public Herschel data through the Herschel Science Archive (HSA). Our webpage will remain live but in a static mode. The page has a dedicated section on Data Processing. It was a privilege to support the Canadian community.

A final word from Mike Fich

The formal end of the Herschel mission has arrived. However, as with all good observatories, the data will provide years of good science. Our HIFI team has worked hard to put all of the data into good, well-reduced form so that anyone can make use of it in the future with minimal time investment in learning about the data reduction process. The software and documentation for both the data and all of the software is now complete and included in the archives for future users.

I am proud of what our team has produced and would like to thank all of those who have helped us over the almost twenty years since we began working on this mission. Participation in this project has been one of the defining endeavours of my career and a highpoint that I will always remember and treasure. Thank-you!

Conferences, workshops and webinars related to Herschel

• Water in the Universe: From Clouds to Oceans
  ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 11-15 April 2016
  

• International Symposium and Workshop on Astrochemistry
  Campinas, SP, Brazil, 3-8 July 2016
  

• Star Formation 2016
  Exeter, UK, 21-26 August 2016
  

• The Milky Way as a Star Formation Engine
  Rome, 26-30 September 2016
  

• The HSC is preparing a data processing workshop for summer 2016, possibly in June. Please visit the HSC conferences and workshops webpage for an update on the workshop date.

By/par Patrick Hall, MSE Advisory Group member
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

With spring comes a new logo for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer project. Science and technical work for MSE continues: a draft of the Detailed Science Case will shortly be sent to the Science Team, and a new engineer has been hired to work in the Project Office.

Progress in Canada

The MSE project was well-received by the Long-Range Plan Mid-Term Review Panel (MTRP). The comment draft of the MTRP report highlighted how MSE will help understand the process of galaxy formation in dark matter halos. The MTRP “strongly recommends that Canada develop the MSE project, and supports the efforts of the project office to seek financial commitments from Canadian and partner institute sources”.

To that end, a group of Canadian engineers and scientists is proposing to conduct conceptual design studies of the Fibre Transport System which connects the fibre positioners to the spectrographs. A CFI application is also in preparation for construction of a prototype high-resolution spectrograph and design and development of integrated observational and operational databases and software. Industry partners Fibertech Optica and ABB Bomem are involved in both these initiatives. Contact Patrick Hall at yorkphall@gmail.com to find out more.

Meetings Worldwide

The annual MSE Collaboration Meeting will be held April 27-29 at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Spain, as represented by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), officially joined the MSE project in December 2015. You can register to attend the meeting at this site.

MSE will also have a presence at the CFHT users’ meeting in Nice on May 1-4, at the CASCA meeting in Winnipeg on May 30 – June 2, and at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation meeting in Edinburgh June 26 – July 1. Hope to see you there!

By/par Stéphanie Côté (NRC Herzberg)
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

La version française suit

An excellent crop of proposals for 2016A

We received an excellent crop of Gemini proposals for semester 2016A, with the largest oversubscriptions we’ve seen in the last 5 years. A total of 46 proposals were received (up from 34 for 2015B), The oversubscriptions jumped to 2.6 for G-North and 3.2 for G-South (using the ratio of requested time over the amount of time available in Band 1 and 2 to Canada; Band 1 + Band 2 hours correspond to the number of hours actually observed for Canadian programs each semester, while Band 3 is overfilling the queue). The total number of hours requested was one of our largest demand in Canadian Gemini history.

Only 2 Subaru exchange time proposals were received for 2016A.

For 2016A Canadian interest in the various instruments is back to GMOS on top as usual, with requests for GMOS-N time to 37% of North time this semester and GMOS-S time to 43% of South time. The next most popular instrument is Flamingos2 with 29% of the South time. Next comes a healthy demand for GRACES with 6 proposals totaling 20% of the North time requests. Note that the GRACES proposals tend to come from new users, including some senior astronomers who had never applied to Gemini before.

Percentages of time requested by each instrument on Gemini-North.

Percentages of time requested by each instrument on Gemini-South.

Recent Canadian Press Release

Gemini and the AAS released a joint press release in November to mark the success of the first year of the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES). This is an ambitious three-year study dedicated to imaging young Jupiters and debris disks around 600 nearby young stars using GPI. Led by Bruce Macintosh from Stanford University, the survey began a year ago and has already been highly successful, with several findings already published in peer-reviewed journals. In its first year, the team has already found what GPI was designed to discover — a young Jupiter in orbit around a nearby star (51 Eri b), this was published in Science in October 2015 and includes many Canadian co-authors: C. Marois, B.C. Matthews, L. Saddlemyer (NRC), J. Rameau, E. Artigau, R. Doyon, D. Lafreniere (U.de Montreal), S. Bruzzone, S. Metchev (U of WO), J. K. Chilcote, J. Maire, M. A. Millar-Blanchaer (U.of Toronto), Z. H. Draper, B. Gerard, M. Johnson-Groh (U of Victoria).You can view the full press release here: www.gemini.edu/node/12447.

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Une excellente récolte de demandes pour 2016A

Nous avons reçu une excellente récolte de demandes Gemini pour le semestre 2016A, engendrant les plus grandes sursouscriptions que nous avons vues au cours des 5 dernières années. Au total, 46 propositions ont été reçues (contre 34 pour 2015B), Les sursouscriptions ont bondi à 2.6 pour Gemini-Nord et 3.2 pour Gemini-Sud (en utilisant le rapport entre le temps demandé sur la quantité de temps disponible dans les Bandes 1 et 2 au Canada ; Bandes 1 + Band 2 correspondent au nombre d’heures effectivement observées pour les programmes canadiens chaque semestre, tandis que la Bande 3 est un surremplissage de la queue). Le nombre total d’heures demandées a été l’un des plus hauts de toute l’histoire Gemini canadienne.

Seules 2 demandes d’échange avec Subaru ont été reçues pour 2016A.

Pour 2016A l’intérêt des astronomes canadiens pour les différents instruments est de retour à la normale avec GMOS en tête, comme d’habitude, avec des demandes de temps totalisant 37% du temps du Nord pour GMOS-N et 43% du temps du Sud pour GMOS-S. Le prochain instrument le plus populaire est Flamingos2 avec 29% du temps du Sud demandé. Vient ensuite un intérêt grandissant pour GRACES avec 6 demandes totalisant 20% du temps demandé au Nord. Notez que les demandes GRACES ont tendance à provenir de nouveaux utilisateurs, y compris certains astronomes seniors qui n’avaient jamais appliqués à Gemini auparavant.

Pourcentages de temps demandés pour chaque instrument à Gemini-Nord.

Pourcentages de temps demandés pour chaque instrument à Gemini-Sud.

Récent communiqué de presse canadien

Gemini et l’AAS ont publié un communiqué commun en Novembre pour marquer le succès de la première année du Gemini Planète Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES). Il s’agit d’une étude ambitieuse de trois ans dédiée à l’imagerie de jeunes Jupiters et disques de débris autour de 600 jeunes étoiles proches en utilisant GPI. Dirigée par Bruce Macintosh de l’Université de Stanford, l’étude a commencé il y a un an et a déjà connu un grand succès, avec plusieurs résultats déjà publiés dans des revues avec comité de lecture. Au cours de sa première année, l’équipe a déjà trouvé ce que GPI a été conçu pour découvrir – une jeune Jupiter en orbite autour d’une étoile proche (51 Eri b), cela a été publié dans la revue Science en Octobre 2015 et comprend de nombreux co-auteurs canadiens: C . Marois, BC Matthews, L. Saddlemyer (CNRC), J. Rameau, E. Artigau, R. Doyon, D. Lafreniere (U.de Montréal), S. Bruzzone, S. Metchev (U de WO), JK Chilcote, J. Maire, MA Millar-Blanchaer (U.of Toronto), ZH Draper, B. Gérard, M. Johnson-Groh (U de Victoria) .Vous pouvez consulter le communiqué de presse ici: www.gemini.edu/node/12447.

From/de Dennis Crabtree (NRC-Herzberg)
with contributions from/avec des contributions de Les Saddlemyer & Morrick Vincent
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

La version française suit

These reports will appear in each issue of Cassiopeia with the goal of informing the Canadian astronomical community on the activities at NRC Herzberg.

Feedback is welcome from community members about how NRC Herzberg is doing in fulfilling our mandate to “operate and administer any astronomical observatories established or maintained by the Government of Canada” (NRC Act).

Integration and Test (I&T) Facility for TMT

The existing integration and test facilities at NRC Herzberg in Victoria were constructed in 1999-2000. In order to maintain Herzberg’s ability to deliver state-of-art instrumentation for TMT, these facilities need to be improved. Specifically, a new I&T facility is required for the construction and testing of NIFIRAOS, the facility adaptive optics system for the TMT.

The new I&T facility will have a 30m by 23m footprint and will be located in an area between an existing parking lot and the side of the sites services building (Figure 1). The new building will be a single story building and consist of three working areas, a Class 1000 Clean Room, a Cold Room, two sets of washrooms, and a Plant Room (Figure 2).

Since the structure is very large, the outside will be finished in a manner to reduce its visibility (Figure 3).

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

SPIROU Update

SPIROU development is proceeding at a rapid pace. This spring the sub-systems will all come together in Toulouse at the CNRS integration facility. Towards this effort, the staff at the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics labs have been assembling and testing the cryo-mechanical system. This includes the vacuum sub-system, optical mounts and mounting and the precision thermal control system. Final sub-system acceptance testing is scheduled to be complete by the end of May, followed immediately by shipment to Toulouse.

In order to meet the 1 metre/second precision requirement, the optical elements, their mounts and the optical bench must be maintained to a temperature that doesn’t vary by more than +/- 1 milliKelvin over a 24 hour period.

During the past six months, the final fabrication and assembly of the sub-components has been progressing. Examples are the large parabola mount shown in Figure 4 and the 3-prism mount shown in Figure 5.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

Figure 6 shows the SPIROU optical bench mounted on the G10 thermal isolation legs. The radiation shielding and aluminum multi-layer insulation is visible just below. The aluminum frame structure below the shielding supports the entire opto-mechanical structure that will operate at 80K. The full-sized surrogate parabola (~40kg), fold mirror and grating are utilized to provide mass and fitting confirmation without risking the final optical elements at this point in development.

Figure 7 shows the optical bench covered by the active radiation shield. This shield will be actively controlled to a precision of better than 10 milliKelvin in order to have an acceptably small effect on the optical system due to radiation effects.

Figure 6.

Figure 7.

With the system almost completely assembled, the next two months will see multiple cool-down cycles to demonstrate reliable operation, tuning of the thermal control system and finalization of the software interfaces.

Figure 8 and Figure 9 show the wrapped thermal critical components being covered up by the moving end of the vacuum vessel for an initial thermal test.

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

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Les rubriques qui suivent reviendront dans chaque numéro du bulletin et ont pour but de tenir les astronomes canadiens au courant des activités de CNRC Herzberg.

Les commentaires des astronomes sur la manière dont CNRC Herzberg accomplit sa mission, c’est-à-dire « assurer le fonctionnement et la gestion des observatoires astronomiques mis sur pied ou exploités par l’État canadien » (Loi sur le CNRC), sont les bienvenus.

Installation d’intégration et d’essai du Télescope de trente mètres (TMT)

La construction des installations de CNRC Herzberg à Victoria, actuellement utilisées pour l’intégration et les essais des appareils, remonte à 1999-2000. Pour que l’on continue de fournir des instruments à la fine pointe de la technologie au TMT, ces installations devront être rénovées. Plus précisément, on aura besoin d’une nouvelle Installation d’intégration et d’essai pour fabriquer et tester le NIFIRAOS, système d’optique adaptative du TMT.

De 30 m sur 23 m d’envergure, la nouvelle installation sera aménagée à un endroit situé entre le parc de stationnement existant et le côté du bâtiment des services aux sites (figure 1). Il s’agira d’un édifice à un étage regroupant trois aires de travail : une salle blanche de classe 1 000, une salle réfrigérée, deux salles de bain et une salle technique (figure 2).

La structure étant assez imposante, l’extérieur sera aménagé de manière à moins jurer dans le paysage (figure 3).

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Le point sur le spectropolarimètre infrarouge (SPIRou)

Le développement du SPIRou va bon train. Ce printemps, les sous-systèmes seront assemblés à Toulouse, à l’installation d’intégration du CNRS. En prévision de cela, le personnel des laboratoires des programmes d’astronomie et d’astrophysique de CNRC Herzberg a monté et testé le système cryomécanique, qui comprend le sous-système sous vide, les fixations des éléments d’optique et les commandes thermiques de précision. Les essais finaux, qui déboucheront sur l’approbation du système, devraient se terminer d’ici la fin du mois de mai et seront immédiatement suivis par l’expédition de l’équipement à Toulouse.

Pour respecter la contrainte d’un mètre/seconde au niveau de la précision, les éléments d’optique, leurs fixations et le banc optique devront être maintenus à une température qui ne variera pas de plus de un millikelvin en 24 heures.

La fabrication et l’assemblage final des sous-éléments ont progressé au cours des six derniers mois, ainsi qu’on peut le constater à la figure 4, illustrant le grand support parabolique, et à la figure 5, représentant la fixation du triple prisme.

Figure 4.

Figure 5.

La figure 6 montre le banc optique du SPIRou fixé sur les pattes G10 à isolation thermique. Le bouclier contre les rayonnements et l’isolation faite de nombreuses couches d’aluminium sont visibles immédiatement en dessous. Le cadre en aluminium situé sous le bouclier soutient l’ensemble du système optomécanique, qui fonctionnera à la température de 80 K. Le simulacre de parabole grandeur nature (~40 kg), le miroir de repliement et le réseau permettront d’effectuer les vérifications relatives à la masse et aux ajustements sans que l’on fasse courir de risques aux éléments d’optique finaux à cette étape du développement.

Sur la figure 7, on peut voir le banc optique recouvert du bouclier anti-rayonnement. Celui-ci sera contrôlé dynamiquement à une précision supérieure à dix millikelvins afin que les effets des rayonnements sur le système optique soient assez faibles pour être acceptables.

Figure 6.

Figure 7.

Puisque l’assemblage du système est presque chose faite, les deux mois qui suivent verront de nombreux cycles de refroidissement ayant pour buts de prouver la fiabilité opérationnelle du système, d’affiner les réglages des commandes thermiques et de finaliser les interfaces du logiciel.

Les figures 8 et 9 illustrent les composants thermiques essentiels dans leur emballage sur le point d’être couverts par la partie mobile de l’enveloppe sous vide en prévision d’un premier test thermique.

Figure 8.

Figure 9.

From/de Julie Bolduc-Duval, coordinator (julie@discovertheuniverse.ca)
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

La version française suit

As you may know, CASCA has been involved in the teacher-training program Discover the Universe (DU) since its beginning in 2011. Here are some highlights from the last few months:

• In November 2015, we offered our first international workshop, thanks to funding from the IAU’s Office for Astronomy Development. We reached 176 (French-speaking) teachers from 11 countries on 3 continents. The content of the workshop is now available to astronomy and education professionals in Africa to share with teachers who couldn’t participate in the online workshop due to limited internet access.

  

• Funding received in 2015 from the Quebec government allowed us to create an activity kit for afterschool programs. This kit, which includes an 80-page manual as well as 6 videos, is only available in French for now but we would like to translate it in the future. It’s available for free on our website.
  

• In 2016, the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto joins us as a major partner. This is great news for us as we are now able to grow our program. Our goal is to develop more resources for teachers and offer more workshops online and across the country. DU remains a national and bilingual program.

If you are interested in teacher training, have already developed resources or simply find the idea interesting, please let me know! We hope to create a network of interested people in different universities and research institutes across Canada.

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Comme vous le savez peut-être, CASCA est impliquée dans le programme de formation des enseignants À la découverte de l’Univers (DU) depuis ses tous débuts en 2011. Voici quelques réalisations importantes des derniers mois:

• En novembre 2015, nous avons offert notre première formation à l’international, grâce à du financement de l’Office for Astronomy Development de l’UAI. Nous avons rejoint 176 enseignants francophones de 11 pays répartis sur 3 continents. Le contenu de la formation est maintenant accessible à des professionnels de l’éducation et de l’astronomie en Afrique afin de la partager avec des enseignants qui ne pouvaient pas participer dans notre formation en ligne dû à un accès internet limité.

  

• Grâce à du financement obtenu du gouvernement du Québec sous le programme NovaScience, nous avons développé une trousse d’activités astronomiques pour les groupes parascolaires. Cette trousse, qui inclut un manuel de 80 pages ainsi que 6 vidéos accompagnatrices, est disponible gratuitement sur notre site web. N’hésitez pas à vous y référer si vous voulez des idées d’activités à faire avec les jeunes. La trousse est uniquement disponible en français pour l’instant, mais nous espérons pouvoir la traduire bientôt.
  

• En 2016, l’Institut Dunlap pour l’astronomie et l’astrophysique de l’Université de Toronto se joint à nous en tant que partenaire majeur. C’est une excellente nouvelle pour nous, car nous sommes maintenant en mesure de faire croître notre programme. Notre objectif est de développer davantage de ressources pour les enseignants et d’offrir plus d’ateliers en ligne et à travers le pays. DU demeure un programme national et bilingue.

Si vous êtes intéressés par la formation des enseignants du primaire/secondaire, si vous avez déjà développé des ressources ou organisé des évènements pour eux ou si vous êtes simplement intéressés par le sujet, faites-moi signe! Nous espérons créer un réseau de personnes intéressées dans les différentes universités et instituts de recherche partout au pays.

From/de Bryan Gaensler (bgaensler@dunlap.utoronto.ca), Canadian SKA Science Director
(Cassiopeia – Spring/printemps 2016)

For more information on the SKA, subscribe to the Canadian SKA email list and visit the Canadian SKA WWW site.

International SKA Activities

Canada is one of 10 member countries of the SKA Organisation, and is represented on the SKA Board of Directors by Greg Fahlman (NRC) and Bryan Gaensler (University of Toronto). The Board most recently met in July 2015 (Cape Town) and November 2015 (Jodrell Bank). Notable outcomes from these two meetings included:

• Election of a new Board Chair (Giovanni Bignami, Italy) and Vice-Chair (YIN Jun, China)
• Discussion of ongoing site characterisation surveys, pre-construction activities, power policies, operations planning, and construction of the SKA headquarters site
• Approval of a cost-constrained budget for the SKA Organisation for 2016
• Consideration of a revised schedule and baseline design for SKA1

The next SKA Board meeting will be held on April 4-5, 2016 (Pune).

A SKA Data Flow Advisory Panel (DFAP) has now been convened, with Canada represented by Chris Loken from Compute Ontario. DFAP has been charged with advising the SKA Board on how to optimise the data flow system to ensure that science results can be efficiently extracted. So far, the panel has reviewed analyses of estimated science data production rates, global networking costs, potential archive sizes and the computational requirements for data re-processing and science analysis. The panel has also considered operational, resourcing and governance issues associated with implementing a solution centrally or through regional centres. The panel began its work in the fall of 2015 and held a two day face-to-face meeting in March 2016 to draft a final report.

For further information on international SKA activities, see the latest SKA Newsletter and the monthly SKA Organisation Bulletin.

SKA Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO) Progress

Round 2 of the Treaty Negotiations was held in Rome on January 26-28, 2016. Nine countries were at the negotiating table with formal delegations of typically 3 to 5 people, mainly government officials in ministries responsible for science facilities or the like, with representation from ministries of foreign affairs, or equivalent. Canada was invited as an Observer and Greg Fahlman (General Manager, NRC-HAA) and Gilles Joncas (Chair, ACURA Board of Management) attended.

Good progress was made toward finalising the text of the proposed Treaty Convention that will establish the IGO, but much more work needs to be done in key areas, including the financial arrangements, matters of access to the telescope, procurement and intellectual property rights and policies, as well as the nature of the privileges and immunities required by the project to operate globally. Working groups to deal with these issues were established in the Round 1 session in October 2015 and continue their work between the formal plenary sessions. The working group chairs do share developments with the Canadian Observers although we are not formal participants in the working groups themselves.

The subsequent Round 3 is scheduled for April 19-21, 2016, also in Rome. Canada is again invited as an Observer. This was intended to be the final Round with the convention to be “initialed” and sent back to the respective governments for their internal ratification processes. It is possible that this ambitious goal will not be met and that a subsequent Round will be needed before the key elements of the Treaty are initialed by all Parties. The intent remains to finalise the Convention by the end of 2016 or early 2017. Ratification by five parties, including the three Host countries (UK, Australia, RSA), is required to bring the SKA IGO into existence. This is anticipated to happen by early 2018 in order to initiate procurement activities for the subsequent construction phase.

The principle issues for the Canadian Observers are to ensure scientific access to the facility, with opportunities to influence science priorities and to protect the substantial investment made in developing technology that would be applicable to the SKA. The SKA negotiating parties are aware of Canada’s position and conscious of the need to provide alternatives for countries unable to sign the Treaty to maintain engagement in the Project.

SKA Science and Science Engagement

Development of a new Canadian SKA website has recently been completed, and the site is now live. The site is fully bilingual, and is your starting point for all information about Canadian SKA activities.

The SKA project maintains 11 international science working groups and another 2 focus groups. Membership of science working groups and focus groups is open to all qualified astronomers. If you are interested in joining one of these groups, please contact Bryan Gaensler (bgaensler@dunlap.utoronto.ca).

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is one of three designated SKA precursors (i.e., SKA pathfinders on an SKA site), and is the only one of these three currently operational. Australian government funding has now been awarded for MWA phase 2, which will improve the sensitivity of the array by an order of magnitude. The MWA consortium held its annual project meeting and Board meeting in Toronto over Dec 7-9, 2015. The MWA Board decided to admit a Canadian consortium to the MWA project, led by the University of Toronto; the legal process to add this new Canadian partner is now underway. This will provide Canada with one seat on the MWA Board; Bryan Gaensler has been invited to attend Board meetings as an observer until the admission process is complete.

The first of a roughly annual series of SKA-related science meetings for Canadian astronomers was held in Toronto over December 10-11, 2015 (immediately following the MWA project meeting). This was a very successful meeting, attended by 63 astronomers, ionosphericists and industry representatives from Canada, Australia, India, the USA, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The meeting featured 25 talks, covering the SKA project, Canadian contributions to SKA science and technology, industry participation, SKA pathfinders, and future Canadian involvement in SKA (see ). In the concluding discussion, a plan emerged for a proposal to the CFI Fund, through which we would begin to develop the tools and infrastructure to support a Canadian SKA Data Centre (along with a short-term focus on similar support for VLASS, CHIME and ASKAP). A CFI proposal is now being developed, led by Erik Rosolowsky (Alberta) and Bryan Gaensler (Toronto).

The University of Toronto and the University of Cape Town will jointly host a major conference, “Fundamental Physics with the Square Kilometre Array”, in April 2017 in Mauritius. The goal is to attract the theoretical physics community to the SKA project. Bryan Gaensler (Toronto; chair) and Ingrid Stairs (UBC) are both members of the Scientific Organising Committee for this meeting.

SKA Technology Development

NRC Herzberg continues to be a major participant in pre-construction efforts across several of the SKA design consortia.

NRC has been designated the lead organisation for the Central Signal Processor (CSP) consortium, and is also leading the SKA1-Mid correlator/beamformer. Work is moving forward strongly on the powerMX FPGA platform (code-named Talon), with prototyping activities well underway.

Within the Dish Consortium, the original recommendation proposed for the downselect on the dish structure was to use the NRC rim-supported composite reflectors. However, this recommendation fell short of the 2/3 assent required by the Dish Board, and a new panelised metal reflector design from Germany and China was allowed to compete against the NRC design. A final downselect occurred in November 2015, and the review panel recommended the German/Chinese design over that developed by NRC. This was a surprising decision, and removes NRC from the SKA Dish Structure work. NRC will continue composite reflector research work for higher frequencies, and will support industry interest in commercial reflectors.

NRC continues to lead the Single Pixel Feed digitiser sub-element, passing preliminary design review and preparing to build prototypes in stage 2. The re-baselining addition of Mid band 5 (4.6-13.8 GHz) has added work requiring higher speed samplers to maintain direct conversion. NRC is collaborating with the ALMA high-speed sampler group led by U. Bordeaux, who are developing suitable high-speed samplers. NRC is continuing work on cryogenic low-noise amplifiers for single pixel feeds bands 1 and 2, and has delivered samples to Onsala and EMSS SA, respectively. These same amplifiers have been chosen for MeerKAT, and NRC is in full production with industry partner Nanowave Technologies to deliver MeerKAT bands 1 and 2. NRC will develop prototype band 5 LNAs and submit them for competitive consideration.

Work on phased array feeds (PAFs) is continuing, although the re-baselining decision deleted SKA-Survey and the PAFs from SKA1. NRC is in discussion with CSIRO and ASTRON to form a new advance instrumentation program consortium to continue work on PAFs for SKA. NRC’s L-band PAF was recently equipped with the first room temperature CMOS LNAs from U. Calgary and achieved a hot/cold test system temperature of 20 K. A full prototype to be tested on DVA-1 is being developed. NRC continues to work on cryogenic PAFs, and has moved its concept design to band 4 (2.8-5.2 GHz). A prototype will be produced, again for testing on DVA1.

Within the Telescope Manager (TM) Consortium, NRC is playing a supporting role to NCRA India to develop standards for the local monitor & control software architecture. A standard based on Tango has been developed, and is being ratified for use by all the other consortia.

The SKA’s Science Data Processor (SDP) team is designing the flow of data from the SKA correlator to individual astronomers. A group of Canadian universities and the CADC are working on the SDP design and implementation. The SDP underwent a design review at the beginning of 2015 and the requirements for the SDP are becoming concrete. Regional data centres will be used for the SKA, and discussions are beginning on the path toward establishing a Canadian (North American?) SKA data centre.

ACURA Advisory Council on the SKA

The Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA) coordinates activities and discussion on the SKA through the ACURA Advisory Council on the SKA (AACS). Four new members have been appointed to ACURA for 2016: Gregory Sivakoff (University of Alberta), Samar Safi-Harb (University of Manitoba), Dexter Jagula (SkyWatch) and David Stevens (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates). ACURA thanks outgoing AACS members Jeroen Stil, Norbert Bartel, Brian Fry and Don Aldridge for their contributions. A listing of all members of AACS is available.

AACS meets several times per year, with its next meeting on April 21, 2016. For further information or to propose AACS agenda items, please contact the AACS Chair, Bryan Gaensler (bgaensler@dunlap.utoronto.ca).