By Nadine Manset (Director of Science Operations, on behalf of the CFHT ‘ohana)
Last month
August 11th, was the 45th anniversary of CFHT’s first light. CFHT’s first exposure
was a two-minute image of Messier 13 taken with a 35mm film camera installed at the prime
focus, just in time for the 1979 General Assembly of the IAU in Montreal. The second
photograph below shows then Director Roger Cayrel inspecting the film. The following month,
on September 28th, 1979, the telescope was dedicated.
This month
CFHT issued a Call for Ideas for CFHT community surveys available here (https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/SciSurvey/) We are initiating the process to design, implement, and carry out an ambitious scientific community-led survey that could be started as early as 2027 and last up to 5 years. This legacy survey will follow the next round of CFHT Large Programs that will be executed in 2025 and 2026. We are calling for letters of ideas for broad scientific themes or more specific proposals
for this community-led survey.
The intent is to design a survey (or surveys) that will be carried out with MegaCam and/or Wenaokeao (co-mount of ESPaDOnS and SPIRou), serve the widest possible community of CFHT users, and have a significant scientific impact and/or legacy value. The final survey will be designed by members of the CFHT community and may combine 2 or more proposals or scientific themes.
Interested individuals and teams may submit their letters by November 15, 2024, by e-mail to
director@cfht.hawaii.edu. Questions can be directed to manset@cfht.hawaii.edu.
Soon
The official selection of the next Large Programs (https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/CallLP25A/) will be announced in October or November. The LPTAC met in early September to discuss and rank all submissions. The final decision will rest in the hands of the CFHT Board of Directors.
The virtual MSE Collaboration Workshop “Re-envisioning the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer within the Future of Large-scale Survey Spectroscopic Facilities” will be held in October and November. The meeting will have 4 sessions each week, on the days of October 29–31 and November 6–8, 2024. Additional details and a link to the registration are available here (https://mse.cfht.hawaii.edu/?page_id=3879) . The registration deadline is September 27.
Next year
Mark your calendar! The 2025 CFHT Users’ Meeting will be held May 26-27-28 at the beautiful
Auberge du Lac-à-l’Eau-Claire resort, in Québec. Stay tuned for additional information.