Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias 1 Artemio Herrero 1 Fast Conclusions Artemio Herrero.

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

1Artemio Herrero 1

Fast Conclusions

Artemio Herrero


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First conclusions

Wine and cheese is a fine thing!

GTC is operating, bravo!

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Question 1(1)

What should be the role of the 8-10m telescopes in the era of the ELTs and the JWST? – What should be the scientific strategy?

Do they have to nurture the ELTs and the JWST?– Dedicate a significant amount of observing time to preparatory

programs

Do they have to collect as many results as possible?– Dedicate as much observing time as possible to own, self-

contained programs

Do they have to try to benefit from the ELTs and the JWST?– Try to exploit your advantages to keep competitive: optimize your

system efficiency and reliability, multiply your instrumental capabilities or specialize, take adva


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Question 1 (2)

A variety of opinions:– W. Smith:

Small(er) telescopes play an important role in the era of 8-10m telescopes choose one of the possible organization models according to your conditions

(8-10m telescopes provide examples of succesful strategies in all cases)

– T. Armandroff: a mixture of all three, according to scientific merit– B. Leibundgut: ELTs haven’t started yet. Do your own science

now and do it as good as you can. Top level science uses all available resources (including KELT, Phil Charles) 8-10m telescopes as workhorses for the ELTs (when they are ready)

– T. Henning: ELTs will need time, it’s not only about telescope construction, it’s also about instruments

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Question 1 (3)

– J.R. Roy: “8-10m telescopes have a 10 year window of scientific freeway ahead”

– P. Charles: push 8-10m telescopes capabilities to their limits and the next questions will have to be answered with the ELT

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Conclusion 1

do your best science now, and in a natural way projects will take the way of the ELTs when these become available (or are close to)

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Science topics (1)

B. Leibundgut: we are seen the Golden Age of Astrophysics– Full wavelength coverage possible, large archives

available, other communities (astroparticles) joining us, public interest…

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Golden Age


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Science topics (2)

Planets and planetary/stellar disks have dominated the presentations (M. Greenhouse: interest shifting from discovery to formation)– Instrumentally, the counterpart is the large interest

on AO shown by all observatories (which is applied in many other interesting problems) Major efforts all around the world One of the main drivers for TMT

– Jerry Nelson insisted in the importance of angular resolution and Taft presented evidence LGS beating NGS

In some cases (VLT, LBT, Keck) interferometry offers one step further

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Science topics (3) But many other: galaxy formation and evolution, dark

M&E, GRBs and SN, BH, reionization epoch…

– Science cases are very similar through different documents Small differences in details between space/ground based

– Reflects in common interests: Multiplexing – multiwavelength capabilities, efficiency…

– Also: interesting sciences cases made available by technological developments:

– Time domain: high temporal resolution (SALT, LSST)– LBT combination of spectroscopy and interferometry– Microshutter array in NIRSpec– Traffic jam at L2…

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Conclusion 2

We have seen interesting and important science cases covering all areas of astrophysics. It’s very difficult to predict which will be the main drivers in ten years

Be prepared for the unexpected (T. Henning, not only in science)

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Data archives & mining

Large CCDs are having a very important impact on Astronomy (W. Smith and T. Tyson, comparison of glass vs CCD growth)

Data handling may be a problem when we reach the dimensions of the LSST or SASIR

Data processing on real time Billions of galaxies, thousands of transient alerts per night

Archives becoming more and more important (W. Smith) Observatories are doing real efforts to build up archives W. Smith: 0,5 Pb currently in the US, increasing at 250 Tb/yr

(LSST: 3Tb/hour) P.Charles: data should be processed and science-ready A. Giménez: VO and data mining importance 11


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Conclusion 3

Important resources and efforts will go in the immediate future into data handling and archives, and related software and infrastructure

When planning our telescopes we have now to pay attention not only to instruments, but also to archives and data handling

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Question 3

Shall the 8-10m telescope communities develop joint scientific projects?– Dedicating a fraction of observing time in more than one

telescope to a given project, either ELT or JWST orientated, or not

– Having meetings (on a regular basis?) to discuss such projects

In particular, should there be an instrumentation collaboration policy?– Shall the telescopes develop common instrumentation

projects?– Shall this matter be discussed within the “8-10 m telescopes

collaboration forum”?


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Collaboration (1) Several collaborations or possible collaborations or

complementarities were mentioned Gemini and Keck (LGS contract) Subaru-Keck-Gemini (time interchanging) GTC with LSST, GMT and SASIR SASIR with LSST

– All with JWST and ESA missions (A. Gimenez and M. Greenhouse emphasized this)

Actually, any combination is possible– However, there are risks (J.R. Roy, T. Henning)

Showed in partnership difficulties (assymetries, need clear goals, different interest…)

C. Gallart: europeans and americans do not really collaborate in the ELT effort (as f.e. with HST and JWST)

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Collaboration (2)

J.M. Rodriguez Espinosa: we should compete on science and not on instruments. We should built similar instruments– P. Charles: agree, although the situation may be

different for workhorse instruments and specific instruments

M. Tarenghi: we should collaborate also in our relations to industry, could make a lot of savings

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Conclusion 4

There is a real interest in collaboration Collaborations are not easy to stablish. People

(particularly observatory directors) should talk often to each other– I personally see regular (or semiregular) meetings

to try to find new ways as very positive Collaborations will bring an increasing reward for the

astronomical community We are a small community more and more left on our own

with industry and the competition with other large communities: organization an collaboration are essential

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Question 4 (1)

Do we have all we need to efficiently use our telescopes?– People

Students from today will be young, motivated professionals when the ELTs operate

– If the few big telescopes and top science projects are done more and more in service mode, how are we going to ensure the training of our young observers?


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Access and training (1)

Queue-mode more demanded and more efficient than classical mode (J.R. Roy)

We need to assure that young people are well trained– Training on 2-4m telescopes (B. Leibundgut)– Several ideas to training people (M. Iye, J.R. Roy) on

larger telescopes (f.e., Visiting Queue Astronomers)– Training mainly in the lab (T. Tyson) with instrument

development– M. Tarenghi: 8-10m telescopes should be test bench

for new technology at ELT, as the NTT for the VLT

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Access and training (2)

Projects (and papers) are carried out by a larger number of scientists– “The end of the lone astronomer” (W. Smith)

In general, this is positive, but– The lack of personal contributions and the

hierarchical structure may push young talented people to other scientific areas (T. Henning)

– Is this related to the lack of people to work on the projects pointed out by C. Gallart?

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Conclusion 5

There is agreement on the need of training people, although there are different views on how serious is the problem and the ways to attack it (probably all ways are valid)

And there is agreement in the need of attracting the young people

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Question 5

Who is driving the construction of the ELTs, astronomers or engineers?

How many ELTs can be expected to be built? Are we envisioning the end of the large telescope

business? i.e., will there be still larger telescopes built or these will the be latest due to funding or to technology?



ELT Construction (1)

Who is driving the construction of the ELTs, astronomers or engineers? – M. Tarenghi, quoting R. Giacconi: “Science,

technology and politics are required, and in the right order. And there is only one right order: science, technology and politics.”

Question settled



ELT construction (2)

How many ELTs can be expected to be built?

3 planned, perhaps 4 possible– 15 years ago, there were no 8-10m telescopes,

now there are 10 (plus LSST)– Time will make construction cheaper

This would allow complete access to the N and S hemispheres to american/japanese/european and other involved communities



ELT Construction (3)

Are we envisioning the end of the large telescope business? – J.R. Roy: No!!

Example: OWL

– Also examples: SASIR, GMT, even GTC

– However, may be we need to change the way of constructing them As radioastronomers did with ALMA As segmented telescopes did with Keck


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Conclusion 6

We have no yet total guarantee that the ELTs will be built, but we should keep ambitious: ELTs do not have to be single entities, nor do they represent the end of the way. We will find, if needed, new ways to look deeper and see better

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Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias 1 Artemio Herrero 1 Fast Conclusions Artemio Herrero.

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