This message requests proposals for Director's Discretionary Time (hereafter DDT) on the APO 3.5-meter telescope. At its November 1997 meeting the ARC Board of Governors (BoG) approved a DDT policy for the 3.5m which allows up to 8% of the total observing time to be used at the Director's discretion. The DDT is further limited by the constraint that it should not cause DDT plus engineering time to exceed 20%, excluding only long term (>=7 nights) shutdowns for *routine* maintenance (e.g., for re-aluminization). These percentage limits are to apply on average over periods of approximately one year or greater. Use of the DDT will be reported annually to the BoG. The DDT policy will go into effect starting 2Q1998. I intend to use DDT primarily to facilitate excellent science using the 3.5m in the most effective ways we can collectively devise. Possibilities which have been discussed to date include target of opportunity programs, exceptional scientific opportunities of any sort which are not supportable through the normal TAC process for any reason, risky/innovative projects, experimentation with new observing modes (e.g., queue observing), inter-observatory cooperative projects, time (or perhaps matching time) for Observatory "key projects", and incentives/rewards for those providing exceptional service (e.g., providing instruments) to the Observatory. This list should not be regarded as exclusive of any other possibilities, of course; I urge you to be creative with this opportunity. Chris Stubbs, 3.5m Telescope Scientist, has suggested a set of general criteria by which DDT requests might be judged. I attach them below; they suggest/define desirable properties of DDT programs but also should not be seen as exclusive of other possible creative approaches. A small amount of DDT will also be used for secondary purposes such as correction of scheduling errors, compensation for time lost to egregious/unusual problems at the Observatory, adjustment to late breaking schedule changes, public outreach or educational programs and so forth. Please send me proposals for allocations of DDT at your earliest convenience. A write-up on our standard ASCII scheduling request template will ultimately be needed for any approved program, and it may be simplest just to send them in that form initially. However, I am happy to respond to requests in a less formal format, so long as they contain enough information to allow evaluation. Please copy your institutional scheduler(s) with any DDT requests. Although there will be no formal TAC process for DDT requests, I may consult disinterested individuals (usually but not necessarily from other ARC institutions) for expert advice as needed. DDT proposals may be submitted at any time, but obviously it might be impractical to grant them time in a particular quarter if they arrive too late in its scheduling cycle. In part, I see the DDT as an opportunity to move somewhat away from our conception of the 3.5m as a "pie cut into six (unequal) slices, each being consumed separately" and towards a more cohesive view in which we try to exploit our facility's strengths in a more systematic/rational way. I hope this will allow us to do some exciting science and look forward to hearing your ideas. Ed Turner +++++++++CHRIS++STUBBS'++SUGGESTED++DDT++CRITERIA++++++++ 1. World-class science that takes advantage of our strengths: -fast instrument switches -large aperture -staff on site -instrumentation 2. Project not to exceed XX hours and/or half nights per quarter. 3. Demonstrated viability with current setup. 4. Interest across multiple ARC institutions. 5. Data accessible to all ARC scientists. 6. Identified coordinator within ARC. 7. Mode of operation that is not accessible via standard TAC allocation of time. APO APO APO APO APO Apache Point Observatory 3.5m APO APO APO APO APO This is message 242 in the apo35-general archive. You can find APO the archive on http://www.astro.princeton.edu/APO/apo35-general/INDEX.html 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