WEBVTT 1 00:02:12.820 --> 00:02:14.320 Stephen Potter: Afternoon, everyone. 2 00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:17.170 Carel van Gend: Hang on! 3 00:02:18.630 --> 00:02:19.430 Encarni: Hello! 4 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:20.430 Stephen Potter: Hello! 5 00:02:20.430 --> 00:02:21.090 Paul Rabe: Right. 6 00:02:22.990 --> 00:02:27.060 Stephen Potter: Okay, I think we might as well get started. So 7 00:02:27.685 --> 00:02:31.469 Stephen Potter: you can hear me. Okay, can you see my shared screen? Okay. 8 00:02:33.590 --> 00:02:34.669 Carel van Gend: Yes, to both. 9 00:02:35.430 --> 00:02:36.010 Stephen Potter: Right. 10 00:02:37.170 --> 00:02:43.794 Stephen Potter: Alright. Well, thanks everyone for join in our Sprint review meeting, and 11 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:53.610 Stephen Potter: as usual, before we get started, I'd just like to remind us. What the purpose of these sprint reviews is. 12 00:02:54.207 --> 00:03:01.550 Stephen Potter: So the I/O team works in sprints, and they're about of about 6 to 8 weeks in duration. 13 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:14.859 Stephen Potter: and at the beginning of each sprint we define goals that we aim to achieve by the end of the sprint, and then, at the end of the sprint. We hold a review in order to assess what we've accomplished or 14 00:03:14.880 --> 00:03:16.419 Stephen Potter: what we haven't accomplished. 15 00:03:16.830 --> 00:03:27.030 Stephen Potter: And as part of this review we invite others, basically, you guys to from the organization so that we can provide you on feedback 16 00:03:27.110 --> 00:03:29.659 Stephen Potter: on the progress of the I/O program. 17 00:03:29.700 --> 00:03:35.609 Stephen Potter: and also to give you the opportunity to ask questions and to provide feedback. 18 00:03:36.658 --> 00:03:44.279 Stephen Potter: So after this meeting, the I/O team, we'll we'll have a planning session sometime next week. 19 00:03:44.590 --> 00:03:53.109 Stephen Potter: where we will use the outcomes from this review and your feedback in order to plan our next sprint. 20 00:03:55.210 --> 00:04:06.879 Stephen Potter: And okay. And and also before we get started, I'd just like to welcome 2 new members to our I/O team Paul Rabbe, and Daniel Kunima 21 00:04:07.332 --> 00:04:13.500 Stephen Potter: so they they both joined the team during the last sprint, and they they both bring their 22 00:04:14.050 --> 00:04:19.819 Stephen Potter: different skill sets and interests. And so you'll be hearing some 23 00:04:20.550 --> 00:04:26.750 Stephen Potter: more updates from them as as the I/O program progresses. 24 00:04:29.330 --> 00:04:43.180 Stephen Potter: And so just to give you a quick, high, level vision of of where we stand at the moment. So, as you know, since the beginning of the the I/O. Program, a lot of our work was 25 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:53.390 Stephen Potter: focused on upgrading our telescopes and instruments in order to become more more automated. 26 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:54.270 Stephen Potter: And 27 00:04:55.150 --> 00:05:06.230 Stephen Potter: so these are some of the high level aims that we had for the I/O program. Things such as being able to submit observations, requests at any time. 28 00:05:07.370 --> 00:05:20.780 Stephen Potter: Being able to have automated observations, requests as was being responding to alerts or other computer generated requests. 29 00:05:21.450 --> 00:05:26.789 Stephen Potter: and also being able to automate 30 00:05:26.810 --> 00:05:34.780 Stephen Potter: finding areas where we can automate everything from the initial science idea to the final publication. 31 00:05:35.110 --> 00:05:40.820 Stephen Potter: And then, on top of all these things. The highest level 32 00:05:40.890 --> 00:05:45.080 Stephen Potter: aims was is basically to coordinate signs across 33 00:05:45.290 --> 00:05:53.580 Stephen Potter: all the telescopes in Sutherlands, in the so-called era of multi-messenger astronomy and basically to advance 34 00:05:53.690 --> 00:06:04.979 Stephen Potter: Sao into the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution by incorporating all the new technologies. AI type type technologies and and others as well. 35 00:06:06.830 --> 00:06:15.680 Stephen Potter: Okay, so that's the background. So this is the summary of what we like to present today. I won't read out the summary. I'll just go into the 1st item. 36 00:06:15.990 --> 00:06:23.789 Stephen Potter: So in this sprint. One thing we've been looking at is the documents. Our document configuration management system. 37 00:06:24.189 --> 00:06:28.600 Stephen Potter: We've been having a look at this because basically we don't have one. 38 00:06:29.130 --> 00:06:33.670 Stephen Potter: And over the past few years the I/O. Team now have built up 39 00:06:33.850 --> 00:06:40.079 Stephen Potter: quite a large amount of documentation which is completely not organized at all. 40 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:51.399 Stephen Potter: And it's in the form of Google docs that belong to which have different owners, word documents, and all sorts of documentation 41 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:52.409 Stephen Potter: and 42 00:06:53.660 --> 00:07:02.450 Stephen Potter: but it's not just the I/O. Team as well. We we don't. The Sao doesn't really have a document configuration management system at all. 43 00:07:02.995 --> 00:07:09.230 Stephen Potter: So we've started this project in order to well, to change that. 44 00:07:09.550 --> 00:07:20.459 Stephen Potter: And this is a project that Paul Rabbe has is guiding us through and leading us. And you know, why do we want a document management system? 45 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:31.640 Stephen Potter: Well, because we need a system that we can search, that we have things like version control, document, retrieval and all that sort of thing and archiving all of our documents. 46 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:36.209 Stephen Potter: Now this doesn't exist yet, so it's it's almost impossible to 47 00:07:36.250 --> 00:07:43.930 Stephen Potter: retrieve anything from all the documents. Find anything from all the documents that we've produced over the years. 48 00:07:46.020 --> 00:07:51.629 Stephen Potter: In addition to having a document management system in place, we've also 49 00:07:51.650 --> 00:07:57.280 Stephen Potter: started looking at new ways of accessing our documents 50 00:07:57.470 --> 00:08:02.220 Stephen Potter: and when Daniel joined the team he introduced us to 51 00:08:03.414 --> 00:08:08.109 Stephen Potter: a new tool from Google called notebook. Lm. 52 00:08:08.571 --> 00:08:12.790 Stephen Potter: so we're actually quite excited about this. And and briefly. 53 00:08:13.395 --> 00:08:28.350 Stephen Potter: so anyone with a Gmail account can use this tool from Google, it's called notebook. Lm, Lm stands for language model. And what this tool allows you to do is that it allows you to upload 54 00:08:28.580 --> 00:08:38.919 Stephen Potter: all your doc as many documents as you like into a notebook. They can be Pdf documents, word documents. They can even be web links 55 00:08:39.490 --> 00:08:42.379 Stephen Potter: or or even videos. 56 00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:45.670 Stephen Potter: You can upload upload all of these. 57 00:08:45.900 --> 00:08:49.029 Stephen Potter: And then, because it's a Google service. 58 00:08:50.500 --> 00:09:00.780 Stephen Potter: it has. This service provides a a chat service via which uses Google's Gemini, large language model. So remember, Gemini is 59 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:04.179 Stephen Potter: Google's equivalent of of Chat Gpt. 60 00:09:04.680 --> 00:09:15.019 Stephen Potter: So once you've uploaded all these documents, you can then use Gemini as kind of an intelligence expert on all of your all of your documents. 61 00:09:16.290 --> 00:09:27.820 Stephen Potter: so this allows you to. Now, you don't need to worry about the document structure at all. This. This interface allows you to find the information that you want 62 00:09:27.860 --> 00:09:39.459 Stephen Potter: by chatting to the to the Chatbot. So you can ask any small questions such as you can't remember the login details to A to a particular PC. 63 00:09:40.250 --> 00:09:55.419 Stephen Potter: You can't remember what the startup instructions are for observing on on the 74 inch, or you can't remember how to reduce data spectroscopic data. You can now ask this question to this expert. 64 00:09:55.840 --> 00:10:02.129 Stephen Potter: and it will provide you with a detailed description or answers to your questions. 65 00:10:03.476 --> 00:10:17.880 Stephen Potter: Not only that, you know. It even provides you example questions. If you just want to have a chat with Gemini about your documentation, it'll even suggest some questions for you to ask. 66 00:10:18.090 --> 00:10:22.679 Stephen Potter: And another interesting feature is this feature here called Generate? 67 00:10:23.218 --> 00:10:29.320 Stephen Potter: So this is quite entertaining. So this this will create a podcast 68 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:34.730 Stephen Potter: so it will create 2 AI generated personalities. 69 00:10:34.810 --> 00:10:43.740 Stephen Potter: and you can tell it to create a podcast on any of your documents and it will within a few minutes return with a podcast 70 00:10:43.790 --> 00:10:46.330 Stephen Potter: on on any of your documents. 71 00:10:46.680 --> 00:10:57.950 Stephen Potter: And it's it's actually quite entertaining. It's it's quite a novel way of reading documents. So a a couple of weeks ago I I don't. I tried it out with the 72 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:10.730 Stephen Potter: I downloaded the Nrf's complete Hr document on policies and procedures. So it's a humongously dreadful document. 73 00:11:10.980 --> 00:11:20.610 Stephen Potter: But if you click on, generate, if you put it into notebook and click on generate, the the podcast the 15 min podcast is is quite entertaining. And 74 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:25.856 Stephen Potter: and so if you haven't used, if you're not familiar with notebook Lm, 75 00:11:26.260 --> 00:11:29.230 Stephen Potter: I thoroughly recommend you that you give it a go. 76 00:11:29.846 --> 00:11:42.679 Stephen Potter: So what we want to do next is we want to make this service available to our user community. So we don't want all our users to download all our documents and create their own notebook. Lms. 77 00:11:43.029 --> 00:11:53.560 Stephen Potter: our next step now is to create this interface for our users. So we so they don't have to collect the documents. We've done that for them, and we provide this this 78 00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:56.750 Stephen Potter: Chatbot service. 79 00:11:59.928 --> 00:12:12.940 Stephen Potter: Another thing we've been working on during this sprint is the automation of analyzing the observing logs from the Lise telescope. So remember, lisade is a fully autonomous telescope 80 00:12:13.220 --> 00:12:17.440 Stephen Potter: and a couple sprints ago. We already entered. 81 00:12:19.176 --> 00:12:20.789 Stephen Potter: Reported that 82 00:12:21.534 --> 00:12:31.280 Stephen Potter: lisade is already auto generating an observing log on the fly, and this observing log is available via web interface. So 83 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:33.520 Stephen Potter: if you want, you can see 84 00:12:33.630 --> 00:12:37.180 Stephen Potter: the details of every new observation as they're being made. 85 00:12:37.190 --> 00:12:45.969 Stephen Potter: But given, this is a fully autonomous telescope. What we actually want is a an observation summary at the end of the night. 86 00:12:46.554 --> 00:12:57.700 Stephen Potter: So we've now done this. And again, we're now making use of Google's Gemini chat bots using gemini specifically because they 87 00:12:57.760 --> 00:13:04.879 Stephen Potter: have provided an Api so now we've we've made some python code that now. 88 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:17.300 Stephen Potter: with an appropriate prompt, we submit the Observing logs to Gemini Api and ask it to return a summary of 89 00:13:17.802 --> 00:13:29.479 Stephen Potter: last night's observations. And then that's automatically emailed to a group of us every morning. And this is an example of the email that we get back from Gemini. 90 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:31.880 Stephen Potter: And so you can see, instead of 91 00:13:32.040 --> 00:13:36.420 Stephen Potter: you know, this observing logs which can be pages and pages of 92 00:13:36.430 --> 00:13:43.870 Stephen Potter: of information. We now get a grand summary from from Gemini of what happened last night. 93 00:13:44.500 --> 00:14:04.629 Stephen Potter: and and, as you can see it took biases, didn't do any flats this particular night. It gives a list of the targets that are observed, whether it was spectroscopy or imaging what filters, etc. Were observed, and it also checks to see if there were any errors reported in the observation logs as well. 94 00:14:05.027 --> 00:14:10.950 Stephen Potter: You can see in this night there. There weren't any errors at all, but they would occur there. 95 00:14:13.550 --> 00:14:24.130 Stephen Potter: Another service that we've been looking at in during this sprint is what we call a lacede pre-flight software. So. 96 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:27.293 Stephen Potter: as you know, lucedi is fully autonomous. 97 00:14:28.130 --> 00:14:33.619 Stephen Potter: but that means there's a lot of automated services that are running in the background. 98 00:14:33.800 --> 00:14:42.369 Stephen Potter: and we need to keep an eye on these services to make sure that they're ready for nighttime operations. So we've now 99 00:14:42.745 --> 00:14:49.249 Stephen Potter: we reported this in a previous sprint. But we've we've advanced this a bit further now. So this pre-flight software 100 00:14:49.550 --> 00:14:52.310 Stephen Potter: in the middle of the afternoon. There's various 101 00:14:52.510 --> 00:15:02.709 Stephen Potter: high level checks of the Lesedi instruments to make sure that the the facility is ready for observing at night time. 102 00:15:02.950 --> 00:15:10.110 Stephen Potter: And so how we did this was, we? We tried to figure out what's the high highest level 103 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.650 Stephen Potter: functions that we can call that would test 104 00:15:13.820 --> 00:15:23.169 Stephen Potter: all the low level functions of the instrument and the telescope, so we didn't want to test every little component in the afternoon. 105 00:15:23.220 --> 00:15:32.160 Stephen Potter: But we could put a high level request in, and if any of the low level things fail, then the high level thing would then fail. So, for example. 106 00:15:33.930 --> 00:15:37.097 Stephen Potter: we in the afternoon we submit. 107 00:15:37.570 --> 00:15:42.869 Stephen Potter: We put the optomechanics of the Mookodi instrument through a series of tests. 108 00:15:43.742 --> 00:15:52.119 Stephen Potter: We then also do some send requests to the detector to to make bias frames, so 109 00:15:52.260 --> 00:15:57.549 Stephen Potter: that determines whether the detector is working and and the bias levels look, okay. 110 00:15:58.030 --> 00:16:00.530 Stephen Potter: We also then submit 111 00:16:01.234 --> 00:16:11.239 Stephen Potter: to the observatory control system. Some standard star observations to be made during the night. So this tests to see if the 112 00:16:11.310 --> 00:16:19.139 Stephen Potter: the big observatory control system, the the high level queue schedule is working and can receive requests and all that's working 113 00:16:20.300 --> 00:16:29.140 Stephen Potter: and then we also at this time submit observations to create sky flats. 114 00:16:30.330 --> 00:16:34.279 Stephen Potter: and you can see at the end of a pre-flight. We get an email back 115 00:16:34.570 --> 00:16:54.499 Stephen Potter: telling us if all these were successful or not, but also included, is a kind of an image of the Standard star tracks across the sky, and also the latest, all sky image that was taken at the time of the afternoon pre-flight test. 116 00:16:57.240 --> 00:17:05.940 Stephen Potter: and for those of us who are familiar with twilight flats. So this is a new aspect of of scheduling flats. 117 00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:14.020 Stephen Potter: You'll know that in order to do twilight flats you need clear skies during twilight. 118 00:17:14.699 --> 00:17:17.799 Stephen Potter: So we can't just automatically 119 00:17:18.030 --> 00:17:26.210 Stephen Potter: scheduled twilight flats we actually have to determine. Is the sky clear enough in order to do flats. 120 00:17:26.410 --> 00:17:32.156 Stephen Potter: And this is one thing that we've we've made progress on during this sprint. 121 00:17:34.404 --> 00:17:41.035 Stephen Potter: so this was actually done by one of Nick's students. What's his name? And Enzo 122 00:17:41.470 --> 00:17:45.430 Stephen Potter: has been working on this, and for this we 123 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:52.840 Stephen Potter: with the Atlas all sky images. We have several months well, probably a couple years now of archive 124 00:17:53.334 --> 00:17:58.445 Stephen Potter: daytime or sky images. And what Enzo did did was he 125 00:17:59.270 --> 00:18:08.601 Stephen Potter: classified these in terms of cloud coverage, given them a a good, a marginal or bad cloud coverage 126 00:18:09.300 --> 00:18:15.799 Stephen Potter: and then using another Google tool called Google's teachable machines. 127 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:20.850 Stephen Potter: This is a another product by Google, in which 128 00:18:21.526 --> 00:18:43.909 Stephen Potter: it can produce a model that's based on your images. It actually does sounds and other things as well. So you can send your organized classified data to Google teachable machine. And it will create a model for you. Based on your input training set. 129 00:18:44.935 --> 00:18:47.714 Stephen Potter: Once, once, Google does that 130 00:18:48.630 --> 00:19:07.710 Stephen Potter: Enzo then developed some further python code that incorporates the model, and he implemented this, using the python open source library called Keras. I think that's how you pronounced it. So this is an open source, deep Learning Library, written in python 131 00:19:08.221 --> 00:19:15.180 Stephen Potter: and so now this is working. This is now part of our pre-flight tests. 132 00:19:15.290 --> 00:19:22.799 Stephen Potter: where, before we before it automatically submits, submits. Twilight flats to the 133 00:19:23.597 --> 00:19:35.749 Stephen Potter: to the queue. It does a it grabs a live image and determines whether the sky is appropriately clear in order to schedule flats. 134 00:19:42.370 --> 00:19:56.068 Stephen Potter: another thing we've worked out improved on. In this sprint is the analysis of Atlas all sky night images. Again for determining cloud coverage. So we reported on this 135 00:19:56.520 --> 00:20:00.780 Stephen Potter: earlier in the year, actually. But we've now formally included this 136 00:20:00.790 --> 00:20:10.479 Stephen Potter: as part of the I/O service. So remember the the I/O. Team. We also have a service of a weather service available that can be 137 00:20:10.937 --> 00:20:16.919 Stephen Potter: there's an Api for it, and you can use it to rather to request 138 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:24.970 Stephen Potter: weather information from the service and included in that. Now is this what we call the 0 point data. So 139 00:20:25.080 --> 00:20:44.210 Stephen Potter: the 0 point data is basically it takes the all sky image, for example, this one here, and it calculates what we what's called a 0 point. So the 0 point is an indication of how clear particular segments of the sky is at any particular time. 140 00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:47.220 Stephen Potter: and we now do this on a live basis 141 00:20:47.330 --> 00:20:54.739 Stephen Potter: and and provided for the weather service. But we've now also incorporated this into the Lacey 142 00:20:54.780 --> 00:21:15.859 Stephen Potter: automated software. So now, when Lacede is running robotically at night time, it uses this information to determine if the weather is cloudy, too cloudy or not, in in order to observe. And we've been, we deployed that only a couple of nights ago, actually, and that that seemed to be going quite nice. 143 00:21:18.250 --> 00:21:30.769 Stephen Potter: Another big project that we're working on is the telemetry project. So the high level goal of this is to produce a unified system to log 144 00:21:30.860 --> 00:21:42.229 Stephen Potter: and analyze telemetry data from all of our instruments and telescopes across the observatory, with the aim to be able to autonomously perform health checks. 145 00:21:42.250 --> 00:21:45.689 Stephen Potter: maybe predict necessary maintenance in advance. 146 00:21:45.880 --> 00:21:52.060 Stephen Potter: and also to produce advanced data products to go with our scientific data. 147 00:21:52.930 --> 00:22:05.499 Stephen Potter: So what this will require is that we will need to start logging all the telemetry data from all our telescopes and instruments, including designing a database and implement them implementation of it 148 00:22:05.550 --> 00:22:13.216 Stephen Potter: and then developing high level AI tools in order to deliver on these things. So Paul Rabe has been leading. 149 00:22:13.750 --> 00:22:17.459 Stephen Potter: the he's bringing his expertise over from salt 150 00:22:17.772 --> 00:22:23.517 Stephen Potter: focusing on this part at the moment which is going to be the basis from which all of this 151 00:22:24.130 --> 00:22:25.060 Stephen Potter: will work. 152 00:22:27.431 --> 00:22:37.350 Stephen Potter: Related to the telemetry project is the Alerts Project, and Maloco has been working on the 1st implementation of this. So we identified 153 00:22:38.308 --> 00:22:48.789 Stephen Potter: one of the highest level alerts that we want is for example, is is the dome, all the dome shutters open when they should not be. 154 00:22:49.040 --> 00:22:53.702 Stephen Potter: and the 1st implementation of this has been deployed. 155 00:22:54.360 --> 00:23:19.699 Stephen Potter: and what this does? Is it, monitors, the weather and the Lacede dome shutters, and if there's a state in which the dome shutters are open when they shouldn't be, that includes daytime and nighttime and different weather conditions that we now get automated email alerts to tell us that that is the case. So this, this is the 1st implementation of this. But 156 00:23:19.740 --> 00:23:28.210 Stephen Potter: the the idea is to extend this alert service to a whole range of alerts from all the telescopes and instruments. 157 00:23:28.958 --> 00:23:34.371 Stephen Potter: And in this case we're now, looking at other ways of how can we alert? Say the 158 00:23:35.866 --> 00:23:49.309 Stephen Potter: the duty technicians that, you know, for example, dome shutters are open when they shouldn't be. And we're looking at. Can we use things like telegram, or or the Whatsapp groups in order to produce? Send those alerts 159 00:23:50.340 --> 00:23:59.140 Stephen Potter: we've also made in this sprint significant progress on the automation of the 74 inch with the shock and wonder instrument. 160 00:23:59.410 --> 00:24:10.089 Stephen Potter: And during this sprint we've now we're at the point where we're doing on sky testing and fine tuning of all of these. So we're now able to 161 00:24:10.210 --> 00:24:16.619 Stephen Potter: submit observation requests for the 74 inch via the observatory control system. 162 00:24:17.348 --> 00:24:30.160 Stephen Potter: The 74 inch is able to pull the observatory control system for a schedule and then execute observation requests on that schedule so it can automatically point to a target. Rn deck 163 00:24:30.310 --> 00:24:35.300 Stephen Potter: then performs a Wcs solution on the live image 164 00:24:35.330 --> 00:24:40.040 Stephen Potter: and then, using that solution, it will do fine pointing 165 00:24:40.060 --> 00:24:44.530 Stephen Potter: to put the target on a on a magic pixel. 166 00:24:45.471 --> 00:24:50.389 Stephen Potter: We're now. It's also now doing it. There's an auto focus function in place 167 00:24:50.410 --> 00:24:58.140 Stephen Potter: and guiding, now also starts automatically, and then, of course, it performs the the observation. So 168 00:24:58.420 --> 00:25:10.169 Stephen Potter: all these have now been accomplished. And now we're testing and fine tuning those on sky. So remaining things to do after we've done all that is to also 169 00:25:10.210 --> 00:25:17.860 Stephen Potter: include the local control units. Remember, we've mentioned these before in previous sprint. So local control units 170 00:25:18.140 --> 00:25:21.039 Stephen Potter: the units are responsible for 171 00:25:21.140 --> 00:25:29.889 Stephen Potter: monitoring the weather and overriding the autonomous telescope when the weather turns bad and and shutting down the telescopes and that sort of thing 172 00:25:30.090 --> 00:25:37.750 Stephen Potter: so hopefully in the next sprints. We'll hear more about this, and our aim is to provide 173 00:25:38.050 --> 00:25:45.530 Stephen Potter: the 74 inches an automated service. Perhaps for the second trimester in in next year. 174 00:25:47.790 --> 00:26:01.480 Stephen Potter: I forgot to mention here as well at the moment. This is only for shock and wonder. But based on our experience with this, we'll then look at. Would we be able to include the Sputnik instrument as a fully automated service as well. 175 00:26:02.365 --> 00:26:13.749 Stephen Potter: Okay, a quick update on the Sio data archive. So this was released a few months ago, and it's not available to the general public yet, but we have shared it with 176 00:26:13.910 --> 00:26:21.769 Stephen Potter: many individuals across the country, and they'd be providing feedback. So this is now 177 00:26:21.860 --> 00:26:29.339 Stephen Potter: in a much more advanced stage, and is all, and it's pretty much ready for general public release. But we've got a 178 00:26:29.570 --> 00:26:33.556 Stephen Potter: some things we've got to make clear yet is 179 00:26:34.080 --> 00:26:39.540 Stephen Potter: how to manage and log data downloads and make sure that we have 180 00:26:41.780 --> 00:26:51.690 Stephen Potter: that users understand propriety periods for for data access and things like that. But basically, the technology there is is pretty much done. 181 00:26:52.280 --> 00:26:59.589 Stephen Potter: And the final item like to announce is we've now formed a 182 00:26:59.740 --> 00:27:03.799 Stephen Potter: a new partnership with the Hartree Centre in the Uk. 183 00:27:04.170 --> 00:27:14.649 Stephen Potter: So the Hartree Center and the Uk is a research facility of the Uk science and Technology facilities Council. 184 00:27:15.242 --> 00:27:25.870 Stephen Potter: So like us, where we're a national research facility of South Africa. The Hartree Center is a research facility of the United Kingdom 185 00:27:26.550 --> 00:27:35.230 Stephen Potter: but where we specialize in astronomy they specialize in high performance computing data, analytics and artificial intelligence. 186 00:27:35.760 --> 00:27:40.520 Stephen Potter: And earlier this year there was an opportunity 187 00:27:41.285 --> 00:27:52.939 Stephen Potter: announced by jointly by the Nrf. And the Uk Science Research Council for Potential partnership programs between 188 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:57.759 Stephen Potter: Nrf Institutes and Uk Research Institutes. 189 00:27:58.020 --> 00:28:03.320 Stephen Potter: And we put in an application jointly with the Heartree Centre 190 00:28:04.860 --> 00:28:08.299 Stephen Potter: for a 2 year program to develop 191 00:28:08.410 --> 00:28:15.160 Stephen Potter: basically the I/O program over the next 2 years. And that application was successful. 192 00:28:15.170 --> 00:28:23.789 Stephen Potter: So we will now be working with the Hartree Center over the next 2 years, and hopefully you will hear more about that 193 00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:31.319 Stephen Potter: in the in the New Year, and I think that's it. 194 00:28:32.259 --> 00:28:36.329 Stephen Potter: Don't show that slide, but I'll just pull up the summary slide. 195 00:28:37.098 --> 00:28:40.030 Stephen Potter: I think I'll stop there, and 196 00:28:41.500 --> 00:28:44.169 Stephen Potter: any questions or comments you're welcome. 197 00:28:47.450 --> 00:28:52.260 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Yeah, from from my side. Very impressive progress on all the various threads. 198 00:28:53.020 --> 00:28:55.329 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Just in terms of the way forward. 199 00:28:56.098 --> 00:29:02.899 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Do you think there'd be capacity to to work on the Irsf and prime telescopes as part of your 200 00:29:03.270 --> 00:29:07.420 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: your next or your subsequent sprints. 201 00:29:08.700 --> 00:29:15.680 Stephen Potter: Yeah, that that's a good question. So Irsf, in particular, because they've they've also installed a new 202 00:29:15.890 --> 00:29:22.010 Stephen Potter: camera on Irsf. Now, that will enable the simultaneous 203 00:29:23.289 --> 00:29:30.029 Stephen Potter: Observing in in 2 optical filters, in addition to the already installed 3 infrared filters. 204 00:29:30.270 --> 00:29:33.600 Stephen Potter: and so the Irsf would be a great 205 00:29:34.190 --> 00:29:38.980 Stephen Potter: facility to to add to the I/O program? 206 00:29:39.783 --> 00:29:46.470 Stephen Potter: So that I think we definitely want to do that. The tricky part at the moment is 207 00:29:47.295 --> 00:29:51.019 Stephen Potter: communicating with our Japanese counterparts 208 00:29:51.080 --> 00:29:54.569 Stephen Potter: before we can even get to the stage of. 209 00:29:54.820 --> 00:30:04.580 Stephen Potter: say, remote observing which is the next stage, from manual observing, is, we need to understand 210 00:30:05.310 --> 00:30:11.270 Stephen Potter: fully. How. How do you observe with Irsf? In the 1st place. 211 00:30:11.520 --> 00:30:20.619 Stephen Potter: we need to be confident that we understand that in detail. So all the manuals need to be written. All the procedures need to be written. 212 00:30:20.730 --> 00:30:23.939 Stephen Potter: and it's only from there that we can then build 213 00:30:23.980 --> 00:30:28.129 Stephen Potter: onto remote observing, so remote, observing. 214 00:30:28.560 --> 00:30:30.850 Stephen Potter: you don't get to that until 215 00:30:31.220 --> 00:30:34.000 Stephen Potter: you're already sure of how to 216 00:30:34.510 --> 00:30:38.599 Stephen Potter: operate the telescope in its in its manual mode. 217 00:30:38.830 --> 00:30:46.290 Stephen Potter: And for that we need detailed manuals, user manuals, and instructions written in English. 218 00:30:46.780 --> 00:30:50.470 Stephen Potter: And I think that's the the current bottleneck. 219 00:30:50.600 --> 00:30:53.060 Stephen Potter: But yeah, we should. We should definitely 220 00:30:53.560 --> 00:30:55.379 Stephen Potter: definitely like to do that next. 221 00:31:04.370 --> 00:31:05.829 Nic: Can I add something, Steve? 222 00:31:06.040 --> 00:31:07.109 Stephen Potter: Yeah, please, do. 223 00:31:07.723 --> 00:31:13.529 Nic: Yeah. So we've also because we had to implement shock on one doors or the 74 inch into those. Yes, we've 224 00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:20.039 Nic: we've. I think we've gotten more comfortable in adding more telescopes to those years. So adding a telescope of 225 00:31:20.310 --> 00:31:24.370 Nic: where people can submit observations, and it automatically generates a schedule. That's 226 00:31:24.800 --> 00:31:27.580 Nic: that's quite easy for us to do. We can do that in the afternoon. 227 00:31:30.350 --> 00:31:34.149 Nic: Yeah. Absolutely still gets executed is the is the tricky part. 228 00:31:34.150 --> 00:31:38.496 Stephen Potter: Is. Yeah, that's the tricky part. And I think 229 00:31:39.040 --> 00:31:45.795 Stephen Potter: So another another good telescope. I think Hitesh is the prime telescope and 230 00:31:47.030 --> 00:31:51.820 Stephen Potter: you know, if if that telescope is continued to be operated 231 00:31:53.007 --> 00:31:56.629 Stephen Potter: in a service observing mode, for example. 232 00:31:56.810 --> 00:32:02.890 Stephen Potter: then that would be a nice telescope to add to the Ocs as as Nick suggests. 233 00:32:04.032 --> 00:32:09.789 Stephen Potter: Because then, that the Ocs provides a kind of uniform template 234 00:32:10.130 --> 00:32:16.549 Stephen Potter: interface for our observers to submit proposals to submit observations, requests. 235 00:32:16.930 --> 00:32:25.130 Stephen Potter: and I think that would be a good thing to aim for in 2025 is to enable our users 236 00:32:25.220 --> 00:32:29.050 Stephen Potter: to request observations on prime for the Ocs. 237 00:32:30.660 --> 00:32:34.999 Stephen Potter: And, as Nick says, you know, how would they get executed? Is another question. 238 00:32:35.340 --> 00:32:39.070 Stephen Potter: Mercedes, fully autonomous. But if prime is 239 00:32:40.900 --> 00:32:45.200 Stephen Potter: service observed, then then so be it that will work as well. 240 00:32:49.930 --> 00:32:51.280 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Yeah, to be a. 241 00:32:51.440 --> 00:33:00.909 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: It would be a great learning exercise for us as well in terms a and a good transitionary phase in in approaching the full, remote observation. Mode. 242 00:33:01.830 --> 00:33:07.730 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: It's also the 2 facilities that are going to be most underutilized. 243 00:33:09.140 --> 00:33:10.490 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: On the platform. 244 00:33:11.655 --> 00:33:12.270 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Sales. 245 00:33:12.300 --> 00:33:20.009 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: So any any effort towards you know. Getting them within the I/O suite would be could have a year. 246 00:33:20.010 --> 00:33:20.490 Stephen Potter: Yeah. 247 00:33:20.490 --> 00:33:21.920 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Significant impact. 248 00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:24.130 Stephen Potter: Yeah, absolutely. 249 00:33:25.190 --> 00:33:32.179 Stephen Potter: Yeah. And I think they they will remain underutilized because of accessibility. 250 00:33:32.200 --> 00:33:35.689 Stephen Potter: And the big thing about the I/O program is 251 00:33:36.952 --> 00:33:42.579 Stephen Potter: providing more accessibility to our telescopes in in different ways. 252 00:33:42.850 --> 00:33:44.130 Stephen Potter: And yeah. 253 00:33:50.660 --> 00:33:51.649 Stephen Potter: okay, I never sure. 254 00:33:51.650 --> 00:33:59.040 Nic: The biggest key with implementing stuff in those years is also. 255 00:34:00.080 --> 00:34:07.090 Nic: you know, the. The. The telescope doesn't necessarily have to be robotic, right? It can be service observing, but the observing requests. 256 00:34:07.650 --> 00:34:08.480 Nic: oh. 257 00:34:08.710 --> 00:34:16.529 Nic: for target of opportunity, stuff cannot be done manually by person. This has to be like computer generated requests, and that's where the Ocs gives you power. 258 00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:17.500 Stephen Potter: Yeah. 259 00:34:21.520 --> 00:34:27.770 Nic: So, yeah, I agree. So, prime. Next year we could put that onto the Ocs generate the schedule. And 260 00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:29.830 Nic: oh, well, I think. 261 00:34:30.250 --> 00:34:36.049 Nic: based on my experience of submitting something to prime it. There is a way to automate the submission 262 00:34:36.710 --> 00:34:41.630 Nic: to them so that they have it in their on their side, automated. 263 00:34:45.359 --> 00:34:46.669 Stephen Potter: Great. Let's do that. 264 00:34:50.580 --> 00:34:58.930 Encarni: From my side. I just wanna say, this is really exciting. And a lot of I think it's very inspirational. So well done, really, really cool stuff. 265 00:34:59.090 --> 00:35:09.070 Encarni: Would you be sharing the recording? Because I think a lot of the salt guys are busy with something this week, and they unfortunately missed it. And I think it would. 266 00:35:09.180 --> 00:35:11.679 Encarni: They would really enjoy watching this. 267 00:35:13.500 --> 00:35:19.349 Stephen Potter: Yeah, this is recorded, and we, we can share it. And we'll probably also 268 00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:25.379 Stephen Potter: transcribe the meeting and 269 00:35:25.600 --> 00:35:37.250 Stephen Potter: maybe produce an AI generated podcast as well. So if you, if you're bored with my monotonous voice, you can listen to a more exciting podcast instead. 270 00:35:38.510 --> 00:35:40.275 Encarni: We'll share all of that then. 271 00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:42.760 Encarni: Thank you. 272 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:51.560 Stephen Potter: Okay I/O team, is there anything else that I've 273 00:35:51.580 --> 00:35:54.389 Stephen Potter: missed out or forgot to say 274 00:35:58.950 --> 00:36:00.570 Stephen Potter: hopefully, I covered everything. 275 00:36:00.570 --> 00:36:03.779 Paul Rabe: Yeah, thanks, Steve. Nothing, nothing more. From our side. 276 00:36:07.180 --> 00:36:11.499 Stephen Potter: Great. Okay? There's no other questions or 277 00:36:11.610 --> 00:36:17.090 Stephen Potter: or comments. So you're welcome to provide us with feedback anytime you like. 278 00:36:17.340 --> 00:36:24.549 Stephen Potter: And also, you know, if there are any projects that you like to get involved in. 279 00:36:24.580 --> 00:36:26.455 Stephen Potter: or any projects 280 00:36:27.270 --> 00:36:34.409 Stephen Potter: new project, any ideas that you have, that you would like to work with us on. Always feel welcome to 281 00:36:34.873 --> 00:36:38.980 Stephen Potter: to talk to us about it, and we'll see what what we can do. 282 00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:50.780 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Perhaps on that point, Steve. Especially regarding document control and config management. They they are, in fact, despite what you said earlier, they are in document control 283 00:36:52.210 --> 00:36:56.860 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: repositories within groups. So perhaps not sao wide, but 284 00:36:57.853 --> 00:37:03.636 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: or whatever thinking and work. You and all specifically you do towards that 285 00:37:04.250 --> 00:37:11.049 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: that needs to be thought about as an Sao wide other than just audio. So 286 00:37:11.290 --> 00:37:14.650 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: we all need to collaborate on that aspect of it. 287 00:37:15.620 --> 00:37:17.009 Stephen Potter: Very good, thank you. 288 00:37:17.610 --> 00:37:18.830 Hitesh Gajjar SAAO: Great thanks. 289 00:37:23.910 --> 00:37:29.953 Stephen Potter: Great. All right. Well, call the meeting to a closing. Thanks everyone for listening in and 290 00:37:30.870 --> 00:37:32.169 Stephen Potter: have a great weekend. 291 00:37:33.340 --> 00:37:34.899 Roufurd Julie: You, too. Thank you. 292 00:37:35.930 --> 00:37:37.100 Carel van Gend: Thanks. 293 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:38.620 Ramotholo Sefako: Thank you. Steve.