DATE: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:07:51 +1100 SUBJECT: Possible AAO bids for AAL's $10M Dear AAO users (and others), AAL is having an Announcement of Opportunity for proposals to use some part of the $10M provided to AAL through the EIF in this year's Budget. This funding is available in FY2011-12 and FY2012-13, but DIISR wants to commit the funds in this financial year. Because these are EIF funds they can be used to build things but not to operate things, and if a project fails, any unused funding goes back to consolidated revenue (i.e. is lost to AAL). Consequently AAL is looking for relatively low-risk projects that will enhance national infrastructure and capabilities. See AAL's AO (http://astronomyaustralia.org.au/EIF_EoI.html ) for the official version, of which the above is a simplified summary. The AAO is considering what opportunities might exist to make best use of these funds, and is seeking your suggestions, thoughts and opinions before deciding what bids to make. The projects we are currently thinking about, in our approximate order of ranking, are listed below. Rough costings are given where available, but please consider these only as crude guidelines at this stage. 1. HERMES 4th arm. The baseline HERMES spectrograph, for which AAO is already funded, is a 3-arm high-resolution spectrograph for Galactic archaeology and stellar astrophysics. However there are strong arguments, based on simultaneous coverage of chemical abundances from all stellar processes, for having a 4th arm. The design AAO will be taking to Preliminary Design Review in February can accommodate either 3 or 4 arms; the expected marginal cost of the 4th arm is in the range $1.0-1.5M. 2. UKST/6dF refurbishment/upgrade. The AAO would like to continue operating the UKST beyond June 2010 - the RAVE project could continue until 2011 and beyond that there are other uses for the UKST such as the proposed TAIPAN survey in support of ASKAP and Skymapper. However future use of the UKST will require significant refurbishment of the telescope infrastructure and would benefit substantially from upgrades to 6dF. The total cost would depend on how extensive the refurbishment was (from ~$0.6M for the bare minimum to keep going at all, to ~$2.7M for a full refurbishment to keep going for a decade) and whether the 6dF upgrade was relatively limited (such as replacing the detectors, fibres and optics coatings, perhaps ~$1M) or more ambitious (like an Echidna-style fibre positioner and a new spectrograph to accommodate many more fibres, perhaps a few $M). 3. GNOSIS OH-suppression fibre feed. There is a pending LIEF bid (led by Joss Bland-Hawthorn) to build an H-band OH-suppression fibre feed for IRIS2 on the AAT. If that LIEF funding is obtained, then the AAO might seek additional funding from AAL for the planned second phase of the project, which adds J-band capability as well (~$1.5M). If the LIEF bid was not successful, AAO might seek the full J+H-band costs (~ $2.5M) from AAL. The full GNOSIS system might be implemented for GNIRS on Gemini rather than IRIS2 on the AAT. 4. NG1dF. This is a proposed wide-field (1-degree), massively- multiplexed (4000-slit) spectrograph for the AAT prime focus. NG1dF was the second-ranked instrument to emerge from the 'new AAT instrument' consultation process that mandated HERMES. The AAO and Durham have carried out a feasibility study which suggests that NG1dF would cost approximately $13M. As this is significantly larger than the available EIF funding, and as we are still building HERMES, NG1dF is ranked lower than the other options. 5. Magellan instrument. There is, at least in principle, the possibility of obtaining time on Magellan by providing an instrument for the telescopes (e.g. a wide-field fibre feed for IMACS and MMIRS). However no explicit concept exists and we have not yet explored this possibility with Magellan. Things not on the list include GMT instruments (already funded under EIF) and instruments for facilities in which Australia does not have a partner share. Combinations of the above are of course quite possible. For example, the AAO might consider submitting bids for items under 1-3 above as follows: HERMES 4th arm $1.5M UKST refurbishment $2.7M Upgrade 6dF detector/optics/fibres $1.0M GNOSIS OH-suppression fibre feed $1.5M Total $6.7M All these figures are only rough estimates at this stage, and of course several alternative scenarios need to be considered. This is a serious consultation process and we will consider all your responses carefully. However time is very limited, so I ask that you send your response to director@aao.gov.au no later than c.o.b. on Friday, 20 November - and earlier responses would be appreciated! Cheers, Matthew. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Professor Matthew Colless FAA Phone: +61-2-9372-4812 Director, Anglo-Australian Observatory Fax: +61-2-9372-4880 P.O. Box 296, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia Email: director@aao.gov.au ------------------------------------------------------------------------