Previous Article Next Article Table of Contents
No Service Observing on the 0.9-m Telescope (1Sep95) (from CTIO, NOAO Newsletter No. 43, September 1995) In the June issue of the NOAO Newsletter, we requested feedback to a proposal to operate the CTIO 0.9-m telescope in a 100% service observing mode. The idea was that blocks of time would continue (as at present) to be assigned to observers in advance. However, instead of the astronomer coming to Tololo to observe in person, the observations would be carried out by a trained observer on the CTIO staff. Unfortunately, only ten responses to this request were received from the user community. Three of these enthusiastically approved of the proposal, while one was totally against it. The remaining six users felt that limited service observing was a good concept, but that the telescope should not be converted 100% of the time to this mode. The main objections raised had to do with (1) the importance of the 0.9-m telescope in training graduate students to observe, and (2) concern over the quality of the data and science that would result. In the meantime, pressure on the CTIO budget has continued to mount. Due to a hiring freeze currently in effect, it will not be possible to replace Mario Hamuy, who left CTIO at the end of July. Many of Mario's present duties will have to be transferred to the Observer Support staff, making it more difficult to find the resources to support the proposed service observing. In addition, the CTIO scientific staff have become stretched to the point that, upon closer examination of the work and responsibility implied by full-time service observing, enthusiasm for pursuing such an experiment is low. These two factors---the apparent lack of interest on the part of users, and the increasing workload that CTIO staff must handle---suggests to us that converting the 0.9-m telescope to 100% service observing would only be justified if the scientific gains are large. While it is the case that service observing would make small allocations of telescope time and certain kinds of synoptic programs feasible, these are relatively modest advantages. Projects such as Gemini have decided to dedicate a significant fraction of telescope time to full-blown queue observing since this would appear to offer considerably greater scientific gains. However, queue observing on the 0.9-m would require significantly more scientific oversight than the proposed service observing, and hence could only be handled by the CTIO scientific staff at the expense of support of the 4-m and 1.5-m telescopes and instrumentation. Under these circumstances, we have decided not to support either service or queue observing on the 0.9-m telescope for the foreseeable future. However, we would remind users that, for several years now, CTIO has regularly reserved a limited number of nights (up to 5 per semester) for service observing with the 4-m telescope Prime Focus CCD camera. These nights are intended to handle requests for one night or less. If you wish to apply for such time, the procedure is exactly the same as for normal observing time, with the exception that you should clearly specify on the observing form that the request is for service observing with the 4-m PFCCD camera. Mark Phillips
Previous Article Next Article Table of Contents