Dear Colleague, This letter announces the release of the ING V1.0 telescope schedules for Semester 2004B. 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 on check-in, and remember to return your torch on check-out + Meet with your SA in the telescope control room no later than 3pm on the first day of your run 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. All CAT, and NL and UK PATT observers should be aware that there are eight override programmes active in this semester on the WHT which are likely to affect your programme. There is one INT override programme active, which may only affect CAT observers. 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.2004b.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. DDS3 tapes will be provided for you to make your personal copy of your data; you do not need to bring your own media. 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/public/policies/aup.html and a description 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 won't 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 May 23rd 2004