Community Review (Mar 2015)

A community review of the VLASS project was held 4-6 March 2015 in Socorro. The review panel was charged with reviewing all aspects of the proposal, and making recommendations on how to proceed with the request.  They reviewed the VLASS proposal, Technical Implementation Plan, and presentations from the review. The review materials are available on the VLASS wiki.

The panel members were:

  • Andrew Baker (Rutgers, Chair)
  • Harry Ferguson (STScI)
  • Jacqueline van Gorkom (Columbia)
  • Jenny Greene (Princeton)
  • Kelsey Johnson (UVA)
  • Ryohei Kawabe (NAOJ)
  • James Miller-Jones (Curtin)
  • Luis Rodriguez (UNAM)
  • Eva Schinnerer (MPIfA)
  • Doug Scott (UBC)
  • Fabian Walter (MPIfA)
  • Belinda Wilkes (CfA)
  • Rogier Windhorst (ASU)

 

Outcome

The primary recommendation of the Community Review Panel was that the first two epochs of the All-Sky survey (~5400 hr covering 82% of the celestial sphere in S-band/B-configruation, over 3 epochs, down to a final depth of 69uJy/bm) be approved, conditional on a clear plan for the delivery of basic and enhanced data products.  The third epoch should be approved only after the successful and timely delivery of such products from the first two epochs.

The Deep tier (~3400 hr over 10 sq. degrees in S-band/A-configuration down to 1.5uJy) was not recommended to be carried out as part of VLASS.  However, given the exciting/cutting-edge science it could deliver, the panel recommended that the Deep science component might be observed via a PI proposal.  It was also suggested in the review that such a program could be carried out via a new "Legacy" style call that is dedicated to support very large, multi-cycle proposals.

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