Attached please find a copy of a new ascii template for submitting APO 3.5m scheduling requests. The only modification is an entry for specifying the desired DIS gratings. Since we now have three pairs (low, medium and high dispersion) available but DIS can only mount two pairs at once, it will be necessary for the APO staff to know which one(s) you want in advance. We will, of course, try to avoid the need to change gratings during the night if at all possible. Thus, please include this information in all requests using DIS. If you only need one dispersion, please only specify that one in order to allow scheduling flexibility. Some details about the available gratings are given in the Minutes of the 7 Jan 1998 Users Cmte. meeting, which is message #237 in the apo35-general archive. Ed Turner ++++++++++++++++++++ 2/17/98 The first item is a blank ascii template which should be filled out for each program granted time. The second is some general instructions, and the third gives more detailed instructions to standardize use of the various items in the template. -------------------------cut-here-------------------------------------- INSTITUTIONAL ID NUMBER: DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: PI: OBSERVER(S): COLLABORATORS: CONTACT INFORMATION: HALF NIGHTS OR HOURS REQUESTED: INSTRUMENT: DIS GRATINGS: OBSERVING MODE: OBSERVING SCHEDULE CONSTRAINTS: SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: SPECIAL PROTECTION JUSTIFICATION: BRIEF SCIENCE JUSTIFICATION: PUBLICATIONS BASED ON APO 3.5m DATA: -----------------------------cut---here----------------------------- A few explanatory notes follow: 1) The PI is considered to be responsible for the productive use of the observing time and the safe use of the equipment. If the PI is not a member of the faculty or senior research staff, such an individual should be identified as a "sponsor" (and therefore responsible in the above sense). This is a general APO policy. 2) List all observers. Remote observing may only be undertaken by, or with the direct help/supervision of, observers with on-site experience and training. Normally, this is taken to be at least 3 nights of time at APO. At the site, some help for experienced observers can be provided by the Observatory staff but training of graduate students or other inexperienced observers is not available; it is the responsibility of ARC institution faculty and staff. 3) List all project scientific collaborators and include their institutional affiliation if not from an ARC institution. 4) Indicate whether the time you request is bright, grey or dark or some mixture. Dark is moon below the horizon; grey is moon up but less than 50% phase, and bright is moon up and greater than 50% phase. It is helpful if you indicate the least restrictive (most moon) conditions which you can use without serious impact on your data. If omitted, you will probably be given whatever fits most conveniently into the schedule, probably bright time. 5) Telescope time will be scheduled in half night blocks (split at APO solar midnight) for most programs, and time should be requested in these units in most cases. Scheduling of smaller blocks of time is also routinely accommodated when there is a scientific need. Such programs should request time in units of hours and should clearly state the need for smaller blocks under the OBSERVING SCHEDULE CONSTRAINTS section. IN EITHER CASE, THE UNIT (HALF NIGHTS OR HOURS) SHOULD BE EXPLICITLY INDICATED. 6) Scheduled science operations must sometimes be canceled for engineering or other purposes. In some cases Observatory management has limited discretion in the scheduling of such closures. If there are any reasons that a program deserves special or unusual protection (which, of course, is not always possible) from such interruptions, please state them clearly in the "special protection justification" section. 7) The science justification need be no more than a paragraph or two. It is only intended to give readers an idea of what you are doing and how for scheduling purposes. Of course, if your institution uses this same form to allocate time, your TAC may require a more detailed justification. It is also useful to give enough information to allow the personnel at the site to appreciate any subtleties of the demands your program will place on the telescope or instrument(s). Similarly, the item requesting information on publications based on 3.5m observations will be used by the Observatory only to keep a record of the telescope's scientific contributions. Institutional TACs might use the information in allocation decisions if they wish. --------------------------------------------------------------- In order to make the job of preparing our monthly requests easier and quicker, please observe the following instructions. --------------------------------------------------------------- ID NUMBER: leave this blank DESCRIPTIVE TITLE: (but not extremely long) PI: one PI only, this name will appear on the 3.5m schedule; if the PI is not a member of the faculty or senior research staff, please also indicate who is sponsoring the proposal OBSERVER(S): additional observers; it is assumed that the PI will also participate in the observations unless it is explicitly indicated otherwise COLLABORATORS: additional scientific collaborators; it is assumed that the PI and the observers listed will also be scientific collaborators unless explicitly indicated CONTACT INFORMATION: email address(es) and phone number(s) of at least the PI and principal observers; this information will be used, for example, if last minute technical problems or questions arise at the site. HALF NIGHTS OR HOURS REQUESTED: please use units of hours or half nights; please specify on or the other explicitly. also please indicate whether you need dark, grey or bright time or some combination. do *not* put any other information in this item, such as how you want the time broken up into different nights, what part of the night you want, etc. INSTRUMENT: just say which instrument(s); no details of internal instrument modes or why you need a particular instrument are needed here DIS GRATINGS: indicate which two, of the available three, pairs of DIS gratings you will want to use; low, medium and high dispersion are available; if you only need one pair, specify only it. OBSERVING MODE: this does *not* mean instrument mode; it means "remote" or "on-site" or "training" again with no particular justification needed. do keep in mind that you should have "on-site" experience, preferably with the instrument in question, before you can use it remotely. "training" means going to the site with an experienced observer/user. OBSERVING SCHEDULE CONSTRAINTS: this is the place to indicate how you need the time scheduled for astronomical or scientific reasons. the most obvious such constraint is that the target object(s) should be well placed in the sky but many others are also possible. please state BOTH the reasons for the restrictions AND explicitly list those dates/times which will satisfy them. preferred, acceptable and unusable dates/times would be useful. in other words, please do not leave it as an exercise for the scheduler to determine, say, what dates/times have M31 at least 45 deg above the horizon for a minimum of 3 hours during dark or grey time at either the beginning or end of the night, and also please do not leave the scheduler guessing why you need to, say, observe jupiter on either october 7-11 or november 10-12. in addition, please make sure that what you request is physically possible; for example, don't request dark hours and then specify dates/times which are bright. in order to expedite the cumbersome chore of scheduling, inconsistent requests MAY simply be dropped without further consultation or recourse. also, if you have an explicit scientific reason to prefer whole or split nights, note it under this item. *at minimum* you should give the coordinates or coordinate ranges of your targets here and indicate which nights and times you consider optimal, even if "any time" will do. in many requests, this will be the longest and most complex entry. if you request observing times in blocks smaller than hours, please give the explanation in this section. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: this is the place to indicate scheduling constraints which are not directly related to the sky or the science to be done, e.g., "i will be out of the country nov 1-12", "not on tuesday nights due to early wed am lectures", or "hot date next sat night". any other sorts of special needs, such as housing on site for a large observing group or use of your own instrument would also go under this item. SPECIAL PROTECTION JUSTIFICATION: please list any special reasons (e.g., a time critical occultation, last data needed to finish a thesis) that the program should be protected from unscheduled closures (for engineering or other purposes) when possible. BRIEF SCIENCE JUSTIFICATION: this will be used to help schedulers understand why you need what you request and to help those working at the site to better understand your requirements. two or three hundred words should be plenty for any but the most complex programs. distribution of these forms to each ARC institution also allows your colleagues elsewhere to see what you are up to. PUBLICATIONS BASED ON APO 3.5m DATA: list all publications during the past three years which were based in significant part on data obtained with the 3.5m telescope. submitted and "in press" papers may be included, but please do not list papers "in preparation". --------------------------------------------------------------------------- APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 42 in the apo35-dis archive. 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