- Welcome new members!
- Joe Callingham
- Lerato Sebokolodi
- Yjan Gordan
- Observing and data processing status: Amy Kimball and Mark Lacy
- All QL calibration for Epoch 3 is done; imaging mostly done
- Single epoch imaging for E2.1 will begin later in the fall
- NRAO is fully staffed with VLASS data analysts!
- Polarization timeline will be delayed (automated QA for continuum will take precedence)
- Question - what can the SSG do to help move things along?
- Joe Callingham has students interested in VLASS polarimetry (V) - use Erik Carlson’s processing script
- Mark - it would be great to have more people looking at polarization
- Amy - would be great to have comparison of results from the demonstration cubes with Erik Carlson’s script
- Steve is interested to know results of this
- Events:
- VLASS Splinter Session at the 242nd AAS
- Action Item from last meeting: Post the recordings of the splinter session online (Steve)
- Any upcoming events to highlight?
- Special session for January 2024 AAS? (proposals due July 27)
- NRAO has no current plans for a session; will focus on having a VLASS session at January 2025 AAS in DC
- ADASS (Astronomical Data and Software Systems) Conference - November in Tucson, AZ (abstracts for oral presentations due September 1)
- Science at Low Frequencies (SALF) meeting - Amsterdam in December, hybrid, abstract deadline - 18th of August (but please register ASAP if you think you will attend in person).
- IAU - summer of 2024, Cape Town
- Updates from working groups (please send by email/Slack or add here directly):
- Extragalactic - Kate Alexander, Heinz Andernach
- Heinz: VLASS is fantastic for identifying cores (and hence hosts) of radio galaxies; more advertising of VLASS + other radio surveys/telescopes (e.g. LOFAR)
- Kate - Inspired community at workshop to use VLASS!
- Joe - LOFAR, NVSS, VLASS - largest sample of peaked spectrum sources found to date!
- In-band VLASS spectral indices might be useful - Joe to follow-up with Steve
- Kristina and Mark - following-up on radio-variable quasars with VLBA
- Galactic - Laurant Loinard, Adam Ginsburg
- Greg Sivakoff - stellar project (RS CVn / sub-sub giants cross correlation; some transient radio sources found; some bright radio sources found that will have implications for radio sources in globular clusters) involving Gaia and VLASS
- CIRADA news - new products coming for cutout server! (will include single epoch images, rms images, naming convention changes) - stay tuned, end of the week
- Joe - Radio star project (M dwarfs) involving Gaia, LOFAR, VLASS, TESS, multiwavelength, etc. - multi-epoch nature of VLASS is extremely important
- Dillon interested in paper
- Transients - Gregg Hallinan, Greg Sivakoff
- Dillon - student projects
- Radio stars (Carlos) - transient rates as a function of stellar type
- Demographics of extragalactic pulsar wind nebulae
- Host galaxies of extragalactic transients in VLASS (CIGALE)
- VLASS transients catalog in progress
- Polarization - Jennifer West, Lerato
- Lerato - pipeline development continuing, new cube cutout strategy
- Commensal - Wendy Peters, Chenoa Tremblay
We are evaluating all the data that was recorded during VLASS by COSMIC. I have two summer students who have created a pipeline to evaluate the data and we are working on piecing all the pipeline together. The system description paper will be submitted this week, pending a 5-minute VLA observation for a plot in the paper. I have added what Epoch 4 would do for COSMIC. - Data Products - Dillon Dong, Erik Rosolowsky
- Dillon - has new code on Github for downloading images from NRAO’s server (alternative to CIRADA)
- Science communication - Brian Kent, Eric Murphy
- EPO - Jacob Noel-Storr, Summer Ash
- Other topics?
- VLASS Epoch 4
- Science pitch write-up (Mark Lacy): here
- Overleaf draft of SSG's white paper on VLASS Epoch 4 - Kristina Nyland
- Action item from last meeting: Kristina will incorporate text from science pitch/Dillon’s presentation into white paper draft for next meeting - OVERDUE; KN will complete this ASAP
- White paper plan: have working group chairs lead and organize input on their respective topics
- New opportunities for commensality? (Chenoa)
- Process other data products through COSMIC (REALFAST, VLITE-FAST)
- There will be a dedicated VLASS Epoch 4 white paper section on commensal observing/plug-in opportunities for new instruments
- How to engage the community and solicit broader feedback? (Juergen)
- NRAO eNews article (needs to be sent before the fall to allow enough time for input)
- Other ideas:
- Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. - individual SSG members would need to spearhead this; NRAO EPO does not solicit science content on social media)
- Zoom webinar on new VLASS opportunities?
- Action Item: follow-up on this at next meeting
- SE Image prioritization
- SSG/community interest in this?
- Input on request form?
- Future meetings: (subject to change; check your email/Slack for updates)
- August 7, at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 17:00 UTC
- September 11, at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 17:00 UTC
- October 2, at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 17:00 UTC
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Reference material:
- Terms of reference document: pdf
- VLASS Slack workspace and SSG channel (contact Bryan Gaensler)
- Confluence page
- Next meeting: Monday, May 22nd at 1pm EST / 11am MST / 18:00 UTC