Ultracam Progress Meeting - 9 May 2001

Attendees: Andy Vick, David Atkinson, Vicki Ramsay, Chris Tierney, Tully Peacock

Absences: Derek Ives, Vikram Dhillon

Notes of Meeting:

· Optical

Tully has now passed his Aristorchos design work to Vik, as requested in Vik's e-mail.

· Electronics/Mechanical

The current software doesn't provide a long enough exposure time to estimate the dark noise of the chip. David will need to take a lot of exposures to cancel out any other systematic noise to get an accurate dark noise using this system.

· Software

Chris queried as to when hardware was going to be purchased. This will be done after Design Review.

· AOB

There has been a lot of outside interest shown in Ultracam and the team discussed how well the system would work over a variety of different telescopes. Some telescopes (eg VLT) may actually find it beneficial to commission their own 'Ultracam' as the design could be tailored to suit and would be much more efficient for them. This should be borne in mind if any future enquiries are made.

Andy is looking into how we licence design of Ultracam (especially any design documentation that goes out).

Andy will be speaking to Marconi with regards to low light level chips that he has heard about. This would probably go through as an HEI Support item but would be beneficial to the project.

With regards to VAT 'mix up' at beginning of project - Finance Dept are currently in discussion with PPARC in respect of claiming this 17.5% figure back for the project budget. Andy will be checking the progress made on this with Ewan Brown.

Review

Peer Review is now moved to Wednesday 23^rd May 2001, although a 'dry run' will still take place on 16^th. All documentation is to be forwarded to Andy by the end of this week.

Having spoken to Vik and Gary Rae, it has been decided that there is no need for outside attendance at the review and that the input from ATC and Sheffield would be sufficient.

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