I am co-PI of the GAMACA project (together with Ruben Garcia-Benito). The fundamental idea is to build an IFU with a large field of view (1 arcmin^2) and seeing-limited angular resolution (1") for the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope. The instrument is special because it allows access to the Andromeda galaxy and the Virgo cluster. Both are the closest objects of their respective class and not accessible from the southern sky. GAMACA is currently at the stage of a feasibility study and we hope for the decision to build the instrument in summer 2021.
I am the Operations Manager for the 4MOST project and a member of the Project Office. My work consists in developing an operations model for 4MOST that will at the same time fit within ESO La Silla-Paranal Observatory environment and satisfy the science needs of the 4MOST surveys.
4MOST is a massively multiplexed spectroscopic instrument that aims to address several science goals simultaneously. The main science cases are:
The crucial idea of 4MOST is that all of these science cases can be observed in parallel, optimising the use of telescope and instrument time. Then, the survey strategies required by the different surveys have to be compatible. Mechanisms have to be in place that allow to find optimal compromises between requirements that are in tension with each other. Data reduction and analysis have to be coordinated, again saving resources through pooling. My main task is to collect all requirements from different sides, to design a system that will satisfy the most important of these requirements and to make sure all applicable requirements have been flown down to the respective work packages.