Subject: The balance of engineering and observing time over the next quarter

From: Michael Strauss

Submitted: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 11:02:18 -0400

Message number: 12 (previous: 11, next: 13 up: Index)

To all users of the APO 3.5m telescope:
  In the last user's committee meeting (see the minutes in
apo35-general message 10), we discussed the continuing frustration
with the various problems that the telescope has been happening, and
whether it makes sense to assign a larger fraction of time to
engineering in the near future (next six months). Quoting from the
minutes: 
Should we deal with problems as they arise, recognizing that we have
increasing staff resources and increasing scientist participation? Or,
should we declare some special focused effort to fix everything in
some finite period of time? (Special shut down, special additional
appeal to scientists for help, etc.).

The consensus of the user's committee was that "all institutions would
agree to having observers preempted by engineering demands, providing
that the specific plan for an interruption and the likelihood of
success because of the interruption were well advertised.  There was a
statement that we should respond fast to problems, as it would benefit
the observatory in the long run."

This approach has the advantage over engineering time scheduled well
in advance that it can take care of problems when they arise and when
there are people in place to fix them. It has the disadvantage, of
course, that people will lose observing time. 

Do people agree with this approach? Please send comments, questions,
arguments, etc., to your user's committee representative at your
institution (me at Princeton, Lew Hobbs at Chicago, etc...)
			Michael Strauss

APO APO APO APO APO  Apache Point Observatory 3.5m  APO APO APO
APO
APO  This is message 12 in the apo35-general archive. You can find
APO  the archive in /u/strauss/apo/mailer/apo35-general on astro.princeton.edu
APO  To join/leave the list, send mail to apo35-request@astro.princeton.edu
APO  To post a message, mail it to apo35-general@astro.princeton.edu
APO
APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO APO