The 1997B observing semester is complete except for the last four nights of January 1998. By the time this edition of the Newsletter appears, all science data obtained during the semester will have been distributed to the principal investigators. If you have not received data that you were expecting, please contact us at wiynq@noao.edu. Investigators who submitted proposals for programs that were not executed or completed should remember that new proposals must be submitted for TAC review if these programs are to be initiated or completed during future observing semesters.
Excluding the last four nights of January 1998, there were 58 nights used for queue programs (nearly the entire NOAO WIYN allocation). There was little time lost to equipment problems during this period, but as usual the weather was a major constraint on the progress of the program. The following table summarizes how the 1997B queue was affected by the weather.
Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan*
Allocated Nights
10 13 9 9 11 6
Total Hours Avail
81 124 95 100 126 68
Observing Hours
14 62 58 77 47 37
Percentage of Time Used
17% 50% 61% 77% 37% 54%
*January 1998 statistics complete only to January 27.
In addition to the scheduled queue nights, portions of seven NOAO T&E nights were used to advance several bright time science programs (T&E time at WIYN is usually scheduled around full moon). Nearly 30 additional hours were spent obtaining science data for queue programs by utilizing this extra time. The 326 hours spent collecting data (this number includes the usual observing overheads) represents about 70% of the total time allocated to the 26 TAC-approved programs for 1997B. Because of the extra T&E time, 61% percent of the bright time allocation was useful for gathering science data. The dark time programs fared considerably worse, with only 52% of the allocated time useful for observations. Below is a breakdown of the progress made during 1997B. With four long, dark nights still remaining in the semester we hope to push several dark time programs closer to completion.
1997B (Fall 1997) WIYN Queue Observing Experiment
Level of Completion
Total 0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Long Programs
High Priority:
Standard 9 1 0 1 1 6
Synoptic 3 0 2 0 1 0
Best Effort: 8 1 1 0 4 2
2HrQ Programs
High Priority: 2 1 0 0 0 1
Best Effort: 4 0 0 1 0 3
Totals: 26 3 3 2 6 12
The observing queues for 1998A (spring 1998) have been constructed and can be reviewed on our Web site at http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/obsprog/queue/S98/S98-index.html. The NOAO WIYN Queue observing program has been allocated 57 nights (470 hours) between 1 February and 31 July 1998. The table below summarizes the 1998A semester in terms of available bright and dark time.
1998A (Spring 1998) WIYN Queue
Observing Experiment
# of programs Hours reqd
Dark Bright Dark Bright
Long Programs
High Priority: 6 5 144 115
Best Effort: 10 2 172 38
2HrQ Programs
High Priority: 2 1 4 2
Best Effort: 2 4 0
Total 20 8 324 155
Available Hours 300 170
During the 1998A semester the WIYN queue program is faced with special scheduling challenges. In May the primary mirror will be aluminized and therefore few nights will be given to NOAO during this month. In fact, the telescope schedule has the bulk of the NOAO nights in June and July, when 44% of the nights are devoted to the queue program. Only 24% of the nights are allocated to the queue in the period February-May (see the following table). This telescope schedule has serious consequences for those science programs that have all or most of their targets in the sky only during the first part of the semester. With so few nights to work with in the early part of the semester, a few programs with high TAC grades unfortunately had to be placed in the Best Effort queue. Their chances for completion are no worse than if they were kept in the High Priority queue (please see the WIYN queue Web pages for a description of the various queues), but after factoring in the typical 40% loss of time due to weather, the queue program is not likely to have enough time to complete these programs after higher ranked programs are executed. The schedule for the first half of the semester also makes it difficult to execute dark time programs simply because are few dark nights in March and April given to NOAO.
Nights Allocated to the 1998A WIYN Queue
Feb Mar Apr May* Jun Jul
Number of Nights
9 6 9 6 15 12
Fraction of Total Nights**
0.36 0.21 0.33 0.33 0.56 0.43
No. of Dark Nights (moon < 50%)
8 0 3 6 8 6
No. of Bright Nights (moon > 50%)
1 6 6 0 7 6
* Telescope will not be in operation for 10 days in May when the primary
mirror is aluminized.
**Not including T&E nights.
Another scheduling aspect that will have a more subtle effect on the WIYN queue program is that only three nights per month (typically centered around full moon) will be scheduled for T&E starting in 1998. In the past the T&E blocks have been five nights long. This will undoubtedly give the WIYN queue more "official" bright nights to work with (although this gain will not be realized during 1998A because of the mirror aluminization in May). However, to step through lunar phase in a manner that is fair for all members of the WIYN consortium, observing blocks will be increased to about eight nights from the current typical six-night length. That is, there will be fewer, but longer, queue observing runs during a semester. Investigators interested in time-critical or synoptic observations should take this into account as they plan their observing programs.
Starting with the 1998A semester, the "WIYNQ form" is no longer submitted with NOAO WIYN observing proposals. Instead, target tables are submitted allowing the proposal process to be uniform for all NOAO facilities. However, the current proposal system and format do not easily provide for any revisions to the observing program or explicit instructions on how queue observers are to execute a program. Revised WIYNQ forms could be submitted in the past at any point during a semester in order to keep the queue team informed and able to make modifications that maximize the chances of success for science programs. Because good communication between investigators and the queue team is essential for a successful program, the WIYN queue form is still available, and we recommend that investigators use it if important information was not included in the original proposal or if revisions to the target tables are required. For example, if certain radial velocity standards are required, but are not listed in the proposal, the investigator should submit a WIYNQ form listing the calibration targets required. The LaTeX template file (wiyn_qform.tex), .sty file (wiynq15.sty), and a sample WIYNQ form (wiyn_qsample.tex) can be found at http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/obsprog/proginfo/WIYNQ (or follow the links from the WIYN Queue home page at http://www.noao.edu/wiyn/obsprog/). WIYNQ forms should be submitted to wiynq-submit@noao.edu. We have found the WIYNQ form to be exceptionally helpful at the telescope while observing and highly recommend that investigators submit a form so that the observers are fully aware of information important to the execution of a science program.
The proposal deadline for the 1998B observing semester is rapidly approaching, and we remind proposers that DensePak is available for bright time programs only. See the WIYN queue home page or the NOAO Newsletter No. 51 for the details about the DensePak instrument. Also, there is now a version of the Hydra assignment code (whydra_sol) that can run on workstations using the Solaris operating system. The program can be transferred from ftp://ftp.noao.edu/kpno/hydra/. A Solaris version of the Hydra simulator is not yet available.
The most important measure of the effectiveness of scheduling NOAO time on the WIYN telescope in a queue format is the quality of the science published. Please send reprints and preprints of any work that includes data obtained by the WIYN queue observing program to:
WIYN Queue Experiment
c/o Paul Smith
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
P.O. Box 26732
Tucson, AZ 85726-6732
Paul Smith for the WIYN Queue Team
(Di Harmer, Abhijit Saha, Daryl Willmarth)