Dear Colleague,

This letter announces the release of the ING V1.0 telescope
schedules for Semester 2004A.  PIs, if you are not carrying
out the observations yourself,  PLEASE PASS THE INFORMATION
GIVEN IN THIS LETTER ON TO YOUR NOMINATED OBSERVER. 

Checklist for Observers
-----------------------
At least one month in advance of your run (details below):

+ Contact your Support Astronomer
+ Confirm your instrumental/detector setup
+ Arrange your La Palma travel and accommodation
+ Familiarise yourself with ING's Health and Safety guidelines
+ Contact the Seminar Organizer
+ Complete the Request Form for any special computing 
  requirements (a Solaris guest account and laptop network 
  access is provided by default)

At the ORM: 

+ Ask for a visitors' pack and torch 
+ Meet with your SA in the telescope control room no later
  than 3pm on the first day of your run
+ Complete the observer feedback form at the end of your run
+ Remember to return your torch on check-out


Allocations and Schedules
-------------------------
A compilation of the allocations, and the WHT and INT v1.0
schedules, are available on the ING web site and its UK mirror:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/ 
 http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/ING/

by selecting "Astronomy", and then "Time Allocations" or 
"Schedules" respectively. Observers may make travel bookings 
based on these schedules.

Please examine the schedules carefully, and inform me of any 
inconsistencies in your allocation. Note that, especially for 
the WHT, the schedules are highly constrained, and it has been
necessary in a few cases to shift allocations by one night in
terms of lunar phase.

Each SP, NL and UK observer should be aware that there are
override programmes active in this semester which could affect
your programme. A summary of these override programmes and the
procedure by which they are triggered and carried out is
given at:

http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/overrides.2004a.html

UK and NL PATT applicants awarded time on the TNG should check 
the TNG web site for scheduling details and guidelines for 
visiting observers:

 http://www.tng.iac.es/


Support
-------
A Support Astronomer will be present on the first night of
each run on the WHT and INT to provide an introduction to the 
telescope and data acquisition systems etc. Please meet with 
your Support Astronomer in the telescope control room by no 
later than 3pm on the first day of your run.

Due to the impact of cost savings at ING, and operation
of the INT as a single-instrument telescope, Telescope
Operator (TO) support is no longer provided on the INT. TO
support continues to be provided for each night of all WHT runs.

Authorised short INT runs of less than 4 nights are in 
general block-scheduled, with Support Astronomer presence 
for the first night of the *block* only.

Observers are reminded that filter and/or grating changes within
a run will be accommodated provided that they have been explicitly
requested in the telescope proposal. However, due to limited human
resources, additional changes to the instrumental configuration
may not be accommodated.

PIs are requested to examine the schedules well in advance
of their run, and to contact their Support Astronomer (listed
on the schedules) for advice on planning observations and 
instrumental/detector setup. Please inform your Support 
Astronomer of who will be carrying out the observations for 
your programme. NOTE THAT INEXPERIENCED OBSERVERS MUST NOT BE
SENT ALONE TO MAKE THE OBSERVATIONS; if in doubt over this,
please seek the advice of your Support Astronomer. 

Observers bringing visitor instruments should allow enough 
time after the run to supervise packing of their equipment. 
ING will allocate a contact person who will verify the contents 
and address to which the equipment is to be sent. A Contents 
Verification Form should be attached to each package/box being 
shipped from the ING. For further details, refer to

http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/planning/travel.html#freight

Travel and Accommodation
------------------------
You can make travel arrangements based on these schedules; PIs
will be contacted individually about any subsequent changes in
the schedules which affect them. For background information on
planning your visit, please refer to the "Planning Observations" 
section of our Web pages:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/planning/

Accommodation at the observatory should be booked DIRECTLY using
the Residencia web bookings form:

http://www.iac.es/orm/residen/

Sea-level accommodation and transport to/from the observatory
should be booked through ING: 

e-mail: bookings@ing.iac.es
tel:    +34 922 425410
fax:    +34 922 425401
web:    http://www.ing.iac.es/ds/booking/ 

Other useful ING telephone numbers are:
Sea-level Office   +34 922 425400
Residencia (Site)  +34 922 405500
WHT Control Room   +34 922 405559
INT Control Room   +34 922 405640


Health and Safety Guidelines
----------------------------
Guidelines regarding Health and Safety issues for visiting 
observers are available at:

http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/planning/health.html

and

http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/planning/safety.html


Visitor Programme
-----------------
We run a full seminar and visitor programme, and we invite 
all observers to spend some time before or after their run at 
the ING sea-level office in Santa Cruz to give a seminar on their 
research or instrumentation work.  Such a visit may also allow 
discussion of your run with, for example, your Support Astronomer.  
We have office and computing facilities for visitors, and a good 
library, so you can start reducing your data or read up on those 
journals of the past months. ING may well be able to cover your 
additional costs if your observing grant does not; just ask the 
Seminar Organizer, Danny Lennon (djl@ing.iac.es): 

 http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/science/seminars.html

Computing Services
------------------
The Conditions of Use for users of ING Computers and Networks are 
described in the following document:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/~cfg/private/policies/aup.html

and a summary of ING's computing facilities for visiting astronomers
is given in:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/~cfg/visitors.html

A Solaris guest account and laptop network access are provided by 
default for each run. When configuring your laptop for network
access, please select an IP address from the appropriate telescope
section in the list of Telescope Assigned IP Numbers:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/~cfg/network/public/tempip.html
 
For additional computing requirements, e.g. if you are bringing your
own instrumentation and computers, or you require additional guest
accounts or DHCP network access for your laptop, please complete 
the Computing Services Request Form for Visiting Astronomers:

 http://www.ing.iac.es/~cfg/pub_notes/request.php


ING Standard Acknowledgement
----------------------------
The ING asks users of its facilities to give proper acknowledgement to
this effect in the papers that they publish. This may be done in either
of two ways:

 +  preferably, as a footnote to the title: 
   "Based on observations made with the (name of telescope) operated  
    on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish
    Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de
    Astrofisica de Canarias"

 +  if editors will not allow a footnote, then in the 
    acknowledgements section: 
   "The (named telescope) is operated on the island of La Palma by the 
    Isaac Newton Group in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los
    Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias"

Authors are asked to send a preprint, and eventually three reprints, of 
such papers to the ING librarian (jma@ing.iac.es) on La Palma, and to the 
IAC in La Laguna. For those papers published electronically a note of
their location on the WWW is sufficient. 


Good Observing!

Ian Skillen

ING Scheduler
Nov. 28, 2003