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Scientific Drivers for Innovative Operations (1Sep94) (from USGP, NOAO Newsletter No. 39, 1 September 1994) Over the next six months, the Gemini Science Committee and the US Gemini Science Advisory Committee will shift their attention from the instrument complement to questions associated with operations. One might think that operations is a fairly mundane topic without great impact on the scientific productivity of a telescope, but for Gemini that will not be the case. The Gemini telescopes are designed to take advantage of the best natural conditions on Mauna Kea and Cerro Pachon, both excellent sites. The stringent performance requirements mean that the image quality and background will reflect the site conditions to a much greater extent than existing telescopes. Thus, there will be more variation in the instantaneous conditions as delivered by the telescope. If you build your telescope and instruments to take advantage of the best ten to twenty percent of the atmospheric conditions, you don't schedule it by letting each astronomer go to the telescope for three nights. You expect a distribution in the quality of the atmospheric conditions and, hopefully, a similar distribution in the requirements of the accepted proposals. The trick is to match up these two distributions. This is done most effectively through some queue scheduling system in which the most highly ranked scientific program consistent with the current environmental conditions is carried out. In this way the time is used most effectively for two reasons. First, the programs which require good conditions are carried out while the conditions are suitable. Second, programs are carried out in order of scientific priority. Obviously, not all programs are suitable for queue scheduling, and not all telescopes are set up to make good use of this system. In the case of the Gemini telescopes, a major advantage is the Cassegrain cluster concept, which allows up to four instruments to be mounted simultaneously on the telescope. An observer can switch between any two of these instruments in a matter of a few minutes. In addition, the control software for the telescope will be compatible with a queue approach, whether that queue is an optimized list encompassing a number of programs or a list of objects from a single program. A second approach that will be seriously examined is a remote observing capability. Because travel to Mauna Kea and Cerro Pachon is quite expensive, and because humans do not work very efficiently at these high altitudes, it may be advantageous not to go to the telescope, but to interact with it (and an operator at the telescope) through some high bandwidth link. There are various degrees of remote observing, from a low bandwidth "eavesdropping" mode, which might allow additional collaborators to participate in the observations, to a duplicate control room set up at some convenient site. Discussions of the desirability of these and other options for observing modes are just beginning. Costs, as well as scientific return, will be examined, and we will undoubtedly be performing some experiments using existing facilities to better understand the requirements of running telescopes in these ways. If you have thoughts on these observing mode issues, or would like to participate in a community-wide discussion of how to best use the Gemini telescopes, please send e-mail to usgpo@noao.edu. Todd Boroson
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