Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.eso.org/sci/observing/policies/Cou-1301.pdf Дата изменения: Tue Jul 5 12:40:21 2011 Дата индексирования: Tue Feb 5 01:33:05 2013 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: annular solar eclipse

ESO/Cou-1301 Date: 19.05.2010

EUROPEAN ORGANISATION FOR ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

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FOR INFORMATION

COUNCIL 117th Meeting Garching, 8 and 9 and June 2010

Allocation of GTO Proposals

Council is invited to take note of this document.


European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere

ESO/Cou-1301 Page 1

Allocation of Guaranteed Time Observations proposals
The current use of Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) is defined in Appendix 2 of the VLT/VLTI Science Operations Policy document (Cou-996 rev. approved in December 2004). Following this policy the Principal Investigator (PI) is asked to submit the observation list (including target, instrument setup and exposure times) before the release of the Call for Proposals, i.e. at least one month before the proposal deadline. These observations are protected and must not be duplicated in regular proposals. The GTO proposals themselves are submitted at the regular proposal deadline and specially marked as GTO. The ESO Observing Programmes Committee (OPC) reviews all received proposals. In almost all cases, the GTO proposals have been ranked highly and have been scheduled. However, on very rare occasions a GTO proposal receives a bad grade. For all proposals the OPC panel provides detailed comments and feedback. The OPC grades proposals from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). Due to the demand of telescope time a typical grade for a successful proposal is around 2, with some variation due to oversubscription of RA ranges or specific observing conditions (dark time, good seeing, photometric, etc.). Proposals with a grade larger (worse) than 3 are not considered for scheduling, as they are regarded to be scientifically not sufficiently rewarding. Since P84 proposals which received bad grades in the pre-evaluation by the OPC panel members are triaged i. e. they are not discussed at the OPC meeting itself. Currently the bottom 30% of proposals is triaged. The Interpretative, Supplementary and Amending Agreement concluded with Chile in 1995 states that Chilean proposals receiving a grade larger (worse) than 3.0 should not be scheduled, even if this means that the 10% observing time for Chilean astronomers is not filled. The allocation of GTO is based on proposals submitted to ESO following the contract with the (instrument) consortium that acquired the guaranteed time. They are provided to the OPC for information (to protect against competing proposals. Contrary to regular proposals, GTO proposals are not triaged, i.e. they are discussed by the OPC panel. The vast majority of GTO proposals obtain grades fully in line with other regular proposals and would be scheduled on scientific merit alone. In a handful of extremely rare cases GTO proposals have been ranked very low (with grades larger (worse) than 3). If a GTO proposal with a bad grade and low rank were nevertheless scheduled, it would take precedence over more highly ranked general observer proposals. This leads to a situation where the telescope and instrument would be used for a research project which has been judged in the peer review significantly inferior to other programmes and impacts the overall scientific return from the VLT/I. For these reasons, the VLT/VLTI Science Operations Policy will be applied in the following way: · GTO proposals with grades larger (worse) than 3.0 will in general not be scheduled. The Director General can overrule the OPC grade, if deemed necessary or appropriate. GTO time will be honoured in all cases. The time of rejected proposals will remain in the ownership of the GTO team and will be allocated at a later time based on a new (improved) proposal.

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European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere

ESO/Cou-1301 Annex 1 Page 1

Appendix 2 from Cou-996 rev.