This note addresses our first major release of 2MASS data 18-24 months from now. I also discuss the Headquarters request for an accelerated release of small amounts of data for scientific and public outreach. In what follows I have highlighted recommendations or major points for further debate in italics.
Different documents quote different timescales, data volumes, and starting points.
One of the most recent documents, the minimum success criteria document, describes a data release no later than June 1, 1999. Interestingly, the ERB advocated the latest release date, suggesting 24 month after the start of survey observations. Choosing between those two dates is a delicate matter with obvious political factors driving us to earlier release dates, perhaps as early as the January 1999, AAS meeting. However, I believe that valid technical considerations push us toward slightly later dates. First, a significant amount of data obtained between June and September 1997 will not be useful due to a large variety of teething problems including focus drifts, hot pixels, jumping J-band bias and quadrants, scheduling issues, RA drifts, etc.