Phase III Program Management

Program Statistics

Once the Phase II has been submitted to the HET night operations staff you can check the status of your proposal online with the Program Statistics tool, which supercedes the obsolete program statistics tool. This program will show you the status of each target submitted, a summary of any targets observed, and a summary of the amount of TAC allocated time that has been expended.

HET Guiders and DIMM Data

These are part of our project for incorporating all ancillary data, and show flux and fwhm for guiders and DIMM output during science data acquisition. The data are: UT time, fwhm, flux and peak flux (maximum of gaussian fit above background), when any ancillary mode is in use.

How To Retrieve Data

The contact person for each program (see Program Notes in the Phase II) will be notified about any observations taken for that program. The data can then be collected from the ftp site in Austin. For more information See: How To Retrieve Data Once you have your data it is wise to examine their quality and usefulness promptly and give feedback to the night operations staff for your next observations. Your best contacts for data reduction of HET data are likely to be other researchers at your institution, but you may contact the night operations staff with questions. We have created a short list of data reduction tips based upon suggestions and comments from PIs:Data Reduction Tips.

Finding the Right Calibration Files

The calibrations are located in the calibration directory on the machine hydra.as.utexas.edu. Each night is labeled by year, month and day as YYYYMMDD. You should first look at the night report and look for calibrations for your configuration. If you do not see them or if you are looking for a specific standard star then you could try using our Calibration Finder to generate a list of all of the calibrations taken in any given month.

How to Update Your Target List as Needed

One of the challenging aspects of running a complex program is successfully overseeing the RA execution of your Phase II target list. PIs and RAs need to collaborate effectively to pick up on unforeseen issues and to make timely modifications to the planned observations when needed.

You should make the changes you need through your program tab for which the PI of the program is set by the TAC (and updated by the RA) and then the PI can give permission for Co-Is to edit targets through the permissions section of the Program tab.

If you submit new or revised targets, you should expect a confirmation e-mail from the RA within 24 hours. You can check the status of your new targets with our Program Statistics tool or through the new program tabs available when you login to http://hydra.as.utexas.edu If you see targets there whose status appears to be wrong, then e-mail the RAs at astronomer@het.as.utexas.edu and expect a response within 24 hours. If no response within 24 hours then send another e-mail.

Data Rejection Policy

Not all observations go as well as planned and a PI may receive data of unsatisfactory quality. Often the contact person will have information about this in the e-mail they received from the night operations staff, which is the first place to look. The second place to look is in the Program Statistics information, to note whether any observation is rejected and uncharged, or accepted and charged. If you discover that you have received a spectrum of unsatisfactory quality you may request to have that spectrum rejected. To do so, first take note of the steps set forth in the: Data Rejection Policy.

Frequently Asked Questions