Guidelines to swap assigned nights

Night swaps on the 1.2m telescope are a frequent occurrence. In 2006, the 1.2m with Keplercam has obtained a significant number of successful, useful observations of planetary transits. Several PIs have participated in these observations, including Dave Latham, Gaspar Bakos, Matt Holman and Dave Charbonneau. The observations require scheduling on particular nights and usually cover at least one-half of a night. Other projects such as measurements of SN lightcurves or follow-up of NEOs also impose tight constraints on the schedule. Several other projects compete for the remaining time, but with less time criticality than those listed above.

Because of the success of the telescope, we are experiencing an over-subscription of about 60%. Thus, the TAC has had to trim time allocations, and scheduling has become more of a challenge than in past years. Because of the nature of transits and their predictions and of their growing rate of discovery, observers have swapped a growing number of nights. Transits usually allow sharing of nights. PIs have been extremely cooperative, but at times there may not be an observer available to cover a given swapped night. We expect the demand for swaps to increase in coming trimesters.

So far, swaps have been conducted informally and successfully, but there have been occasional glitches. We offer the following guidelines for swapping nights to continue efficient observations and minimize glitches.

• There is only one official schedule, available on the FLWO site. We update the schedule on the TDC web site as soon as feasible, but it may lag somewhat the FLWO version.
• Emilio Falco (EF), or a designee in his absence, is solely responsible for maintaining the FLWO schedule and for requesting updates on the TDC site.
• PIs should negotiate among themselves any desired swap, as well as which observers will conduct the observations. As soon as there is an agreement, the parties should inform EF. The party receiving a night should secure an acknowledgment from EF and should persist until the schedule reflects the swap. The swap will be official only once the schedule is updated to reflect it. The preferred means of communication is email.
• PIs should ensure that FLWO ridge staff is informed of any swap once it is official, and any observer or filter changes should be stated. The staff will acknowledge such changes to the PIs as soon as possible.