NIRI Phase I (Proposal) and Phase II (OT) Checklist

A number of common OT errors are made by PIs when writing their technical justifications and when creating phase II OT files. To demonstrate technical feasibility and to speed acceptance of phase II files you should consider the following checklist when writing your telescope proposal and when preparing your detailed observing program.

• Instrument configuration:
  • Are the camera and filter (for imaging) or camera, slit and grism (for spectroscopy) specified in the proposal instrument resource list?
  • Did you choose the appropriate camera?
  • Is the filter you need available?
  • Does your choice of slit and grism give appropriate spectral resolution and spectral coverage?
• Telescope peripheral wavefront sensors:
  • Have you specified an appropriate guide star for the peripheral wavefront sensor(s) such that the PWFS probe arm(s) will not vignette the science field (especially critical with the wider field of the f/6 camera)?
  • Will the same guide star be accessible for all planned dither positions or have alternate guide stars been specified?
• Calibrations:
  • Are the appropriate baseline calibrations (flat, arc, standard star) included in the phase II file and will they be sufficient? If not, have you included additional calibration data for your program?
  • Has sufficient observing time been requested for additional calibrations?
  • For photometry and spectroscopy, have appropriate telluric standards or calibration stars been selected for observation both before and after the science observation?
• Observing time:
  • Did you confirm the exposure time and S/N using the NIRI Integration Time Calculator? Note that your program may be done in better conditions than you requested; thus for bright targets choose exposure times that result in peak counts per pixel at least a factor of 2 below the saturation danger level (e.g., 60000 electrons for the shallow well)
  • Are overheads included in the time requested in your proposal?
  • Have overheads been included for additional calibrations?
  • Is time included for off-source sky measurements, if needed?
  • If many very short exposures are needed, you may need to include larger overheads to account for the lower observing efficiency.
  • If accurate centering of the slit on the target is essential, have appropriate overheads been included to allow periodic checks of the slit centering?
• Observing conditions requested (for queue-scheduled observations):
  • Is the expected image quality (scaled to the airmass of your target) sufficient for your program? What is the minimum image quality necessary for the science?
  • What level of cloud cover is acceptable? Is photometric weather required?
  • Water vapor content is usually only relevant if you are observing in the thermal IR (3 to 5 microns).
  • Sky background in the near-IR doesn't vary greatly, but it does depend on water vapor at 3 to 5 microns.
  • Note the product of the probabilities of each of the conditions listed above. You might wish to reconsider the minimum requirements of your program, and/or consider submitting your project as a queue-scheduled observation.
  • Note that the product of the probabilities of each of the conditions describes the liklihood of any single observation being executed. You may wish to reconsider some of your constraints if the product is very low.
• Acquisition Sequences:
  • Acquisition sequences are required for all spectroscopic observations.
  • Acquisition sequences are recommended for imaging observations where centering on the array is important.
  • Acquisition sequences are recommended for imaging observations where the exposure time is uncertain and saturation is possible but unacceptable.
  • Example acquisition sequences can be found in the NIRI OT Library

  
  

  

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  Last update 2006 September 1; Andrew Stephens, Tom Geballe & Joe Jensen