Current discussion documents, the email archive, and previous newsletters may be accessed by consortium members on the consortium internal web pages.

Purpose, membership, and structure of the UKIDSS consortium

The suggestion that WFCAM should be used for a set of ambitious public surveys was the idea of Andy Lawrence, who is the UKIDSS PI. In 2000 a call was made to the UK astronomical community for volunteers to form a consortium which would (i.) design a set of surveys, (ii.) prepare a request for telescope time for approval by the UKIRT Board, and (iii.) undertake the observing. The processed survey data will be made available to the ESO community immediately it enters the archive, and consortium members have no privileged data rights. The purpose of the consortium is to represent the survey interests of the ESO community, and to undertake the surveys on behalf of the community.

There are currently over 100 consortium members, mostly from the UK but including other ESO astronomers. A small number of Japanese astronomers have also been invited to join the consortium as part of a process of promoting scientific collaboration between Japanese and UK astronomers in joint exploitation of UKIRT and Subaru.

We welcome enquiries about the consortium, comments on strategy, correspondence on possible collaboration, or indeed on any other issue. In the first place please email Steve Warren. To email the entire consortium the address is ukidss at ic.ac.uk.

UKIDSS consortium working groups

Membership of the various consortium working groups is tablulated below. The table also provides the list of volunteers who will undertake the observations.