Queued Service Observations

Table of Content

Current News and Events Pre-semester information During Observations Post Observations Information
News (Phase 1 and PH2) QSO Observations Reduction
2009B Instruments Night Reports DADS
TOO Phase 1 Statistics  
Contact PH2 TOO  

News

QSO schedule udpdated to change the dates of MegaCam run 09BQ07 and WIRCam run 09BQ08.
PH2 for 2009B is now closed.
Poopsy for 2010A closed on Sep 23 at 14h.

2009B schedule, programs, and run summaries

List of 2009B QSO programs for MegaPrime, WIRCam, and ESPaDOnS.

Current News and Events [ Return to top ]
QrunID Instrument HST Dates Number of Nights Status Run Summary
09BQ01 WIRCam 08/01/09 -08/14/09 14 Done Good run. Lost about 3 nights to high humidity. Good IQ. Used Engineering time for Staring Mode implementation.
09BQ02 MegaCam 08/15/09 - 08/23/09 9 Done Good run. Lost about 1 night to high humidity. Good IQ except for a few hours. Minimal time lost to technical problems.
09BQ03 WIRCam 08/24/09 -08/28/09 5 Done Good short run. Lost 1 night to high humidity. Good IQ. No time lost to technical problems.
09BQ04 ESPaDOnS 09/02/09 -09/10/09 9 Done Good run. Good weather. About 5hrs lost to telescope issues. First official trial at single-person operations from the summit (with Warm Body present for safety reasons): promising!
09BQ05 MegaCam 09/11/09 - 09/23/09 13 Done A run similar to 09BQ02, with about 11 hours lost to weather, minimal time lost to technical problems, and almost 6 hours of validated science per night.
09BQ06 ESPaDOnS 09/24/09 - 10/09/09 16 Done Poor run. The run was affected by bad weather (fog, or clouds).
09BQ07 MegaCam 10/10/09 - 10/19/09 10 Done The run went very well, with less time lost to weather and more validated hours per night. The run was shortened due to very few targets left for the first 2/3 of the night.
09BQ08 WIRCam 10/20/09 -11/09/09 21 Done A very long and productive run. The weather started to turn bad toward the end...
09BQ09 MegaCam 11/10/09 - 11/22/09 13 Done
09BQ10 ESPaDOnS 11/23/09 - 12/09/09 17 Started
09BQ11 MegaCam 12/10/09 - 12/20/09 11 Not Started
09BQ12 WIRCam 12/21/09 - 12/29/09 9 Not Started
09BQ13 ESPaDOnS 12/30/09 - 01/06/10 8 Not Started
09BQ14 MegaCam 01/07/10 - 01/19/10 13 Not started
09BQ15 ESPaDOnS 01/22/10 - 01/31/10 10 Not started

TOO

The QSO mode is well-adapted for target-of-opportunity (TOO) programs. If you want to submit unpredictable TOO observations to be carried out in a queue mode with the MegaCam, WIRCam or ESPaDOnS at any time during the current semester, you must fill up the Web form below. After receiving this information, the CFHT Executive Director will review your proposal. If telescope time is allocated, the QSO Team will either ask the PI to fill in the required PH2 information, or extract the necessary information from the Web form and prepare the observations. If you have already received telescope time from the TAC for your TOO program, you do NOT have to fill this form.

Contact

You need to contact the QSO Team? Please send an email to qsoteam -=at=- cfht.hawaii.edu. During a QSO run, communication between the investigators and the QSO Team will be done exclusively through the QSO Coordinator, not the QSO observer. For the status of your program, please refer first to the Web night reports (below).

QSO

The main concept behind the QSO mode is to execute programs only during the sky conditions (seeing, background, clouds, etc.) requested by Principals Investigators (PIs) in order to meet the programs' science goals. This is achieved by grouping all programs in a database and by selecting appropriate observations according to a set of constraints, rules and sky conditions. Programs are then carried out by a well trained, local team of observers in a service mode (i.e. investigators are not present at the observatory).

Instruments

The QSO mode is offered with CFHT's 3 main instruments, the visible imager MegaCam, the infrared imager WIRCam, and the spectropolarimeter ESPaDOnS. Each instrument has a web page which offers technical details and help about observations:

Phase 1 tool

The first step for applying for time in a queue mode is to submit a proposal to the Time Allocation Committee. For the Canadian, French, Taiwanese, and Brazilian communities, this must be done through a Phase 1 tool. Starting with the proposal submission phase for 2010B, CFHT will use an new tool. Stay tuned!

It is STRONGLY recommended to carefully read the relevant document before starting your Phase 1. Those documents are updated with new information before each semester. Investigators should spend some time to familiarize themselves with the QSO concept, the characteristics of the instruments, and the general procedures.

Notes for 2010A:

  • CFHT offers non-sidereal tracking in QSO mode for all 3 QSO instruments. With this option, targets defined with ephemeris will get their non-sidereal rates calculated and sent to the Telescope Control System. Note that the tracking starts to exhibit drifting after only a couple of minutes. Non-sidereal guiding is not offered; only tracking with non-sidereal rates will be available. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact the QSO Team at qso-=at=-cfht.hawaii.edu .
  • The minimum exposure time for WIRCam has been lowered to 2.5s.
  • New for 2010A for WIRCam:
    1. Staring Mode is now offered, please see details on the 2010A page and send any question to qsoteam -=at=- cfht.hawaii.edu
    2. PIs MUST include 15s overheads for each telescope slews performed between a target position and a sky position.
Informations for Semester Preparation [ Return to top ]
Quick checklist for Phase 1:
  • You have requested time in HOURS.
  • Your requested time includes the appropriate OVERHEADS: readout time, telescope slews if appropriate.
  • You have included a table of the number of hours per RA bin.
  • You have used the appropriate EXPOSURE TIME CALCULATOR.
  • If your program is a Snapshot program, it requests bad sky conditions (bad Image Quality or high extinction), is simple, and is made of short OGs.
  • You have included on-sky calibrations if needed and if not already taken care of by the QSO Team.
  • You have contacted the QSO Team for any question or concern.

For more information concerning the QSO Project and for any help during the preparation of your queue proposal, contact the QSO Team (qsoteam -=at=- cfht.hawaii.edu).

PH2

PH2 is a sophisticated Web based tool designed specifically for the Phase 2 submission of observations with MegaCam, WIRCam, and ESPaDOnS, and available from the CFHT Web site.

The phase 2 period for accepted proposals for 2009B with MegaCam, WIRCam and ESPaDOnS is now closed.

  1. The telescope schedule is prepared after PIs have all entered their PH2; if not knowing the telescope schedule in advance causes problems for your PH2, please email qsoteam -=at=- cfht.hawaii.edu for further instructions.
  2. NEW since 09A: we now offer non-sidereal tracking with all 3 instruments. Please consult the Tutorials below for a few helpful tips (about guiding, maximum length of exposures, disabled options, etc.).
    3. NEW for ESPaDOnS: users can prepare and upload their own Finding Charts. Please see the Tutorial for requirements.
  3. If you have any question or comment, please email the QSO Team (qsoteam -=at=- cfht.hawaii.edu). Do NOT email individual members of the team, because this can delay answers depending on each member's schedule.

List of 2009B QSO programs for


PH2 Documentation and Tutorials

The documentation has been re-organized and simplified. Two short documents present How QSO works at CFHT and the General Principals of Phase 2 (PH2). Each document starts with an Abstract and a set of keywords, to help users find topics of interest. All users are encouraged to read those documents at least once, which should take about 15 minutes.

The tutorials for each instruments have been simplified and updated. A short section at the top summarizes the basics of PH2. A Table of Content and links throughout the tutorials ease navigation. The tutorials are available within PH2 through the "Tutorial" button, or directly from the following links:

When ready, you may login to PH2:


MegaCam/WIRCam/ESPaDOnS If you are not already familiar with the MegaCam and WIRCam mosaic cameras or the spectropolarimeter ESPaDOnS, or for any news concerning these instruments, you should consult their respective Web pages:


Observations

Each day during a QSO run, a CFHT astronomer prepares various queues suitable for the coming night, based on PI requests for Image Quality and sky conditions, and ranking of the programs. "A" programs are given priority, followed by "B", "C", and Snapshot programs. Queues are also made as much as possible to give each agency its share of the night; if an agency has 30% of the allocated time on a given instrument, it will be found on average in about 30% of each queue. At night, depending on the sky conditions, the CFHT Service Observer selects and executes one or more queues. Each exposure receives a grade indicating the quality of the data (grades 1 and 2 are good for the science proposed), and most exposures also receive comments about sky conditions, technical issues, etc. The next morning, a CFHT astronomer reviews those grades and comments, and validates exposures which are good enough for the science goals proposed; only validated exposures are taken out of a PI's allocated time. Exposures which are not validated will be tried again if possible.

Night Reports

During a semester, night reports are available after the QSO Team has performed the data evaluation for the previous night. The night report page allows the user also to extract the current status on the QSO programs. Thus, you will not have to contact us to know what's happening with your observing program. We are also publishing some statistics on the QSO mode during a given semester (see next section). More information, notably regarding the weather conditions and data distribution, have also been added to these reports.

Stats

The current statistics on the QSO mode are available. This includes the time distribution for the different Agencies as well as some global numbers on the programs.

TOO

The QSO mode is well-adapted for target-of-opportunity (TOO) programs. If you want to submit unpredictable TOO observations to be carried out in a queue mode with the MegaCam, WIRCam or ESPaDOnS at any time during the current semester, you must fill up the Web form below. After receiving this information, the CFHT Executive Director will review your proposal. If telescope time is allocated, the QSO Team will either ask the PI to fill in the required PH2 information, or extract the necessary information from the Web form and prepare the observations. If you have already received telescope time from the TAC for your TOO program, you do NOT have to fill this form.

Informations useful during Observations [ Return to top ]

Reduction

Data are detrended after each run (MegaPrime and WIRCam) or reduced after each night (ESPaDOnS) by a team of astronomers and software engineers. PIs who request immediate (or quick) access to their data can receive raw data or detrended data as soon as available. When data are ready, PIs receive an email from CFHT with the location of their data; the data (detrended, and raw for some instruments), documentation, instructions, and metadata are downloadable from a private URL with a unique key sent to PIs.

Each instrument has its own data reduction pipeline, maintained by CFHT astronomers and software engineers:

DADS

The DADS Team distributed data to PIs. At the beginning of each semester or when data are available, PIs receive information on how to retrieve their data.

Proprietary period

The proprietary period of QSO data extends by default to 1 year + 1 month starting at the end of the QSO semester. For instance, data taken for the 2009B semester (August 1 - January 31) will have a default release date set to 02/28/2011. The extra month is allowed because of possible delays in the data reduction distribution of observations carried out near the end of a semester. If an extension is requested in Poopsy during the Phase 1 period and is approved by TAC, a new date will be set for this program through the QSO system. This release date for the QSO data is indicated in the fits headers by the keyword REL_DATE.

Note: Since data can be taken at almost any time during a semester in a queue mode, it will not be possible to change the release date after the beginning of a semester. For snapshot programs, the proprietary period is three months following the end of the semester. The CFHTLS data have a different release date, regarding the proprietary period system supported by the Board of Directors.

Information useful after Observations [ Return to top ]