Information for New Users

This set of slides may also help familiarize new users with HET observations.

Phase II is the next step after submitting a proposal to your local Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC). If you are awarded time by your TAC you will need an account on the machine hydra.as.utexas.edu which you can create through a web browser here.

Each local committee allocates hours of different priority to a program and submits that to the HET. The HET resident astronomers then link each program to a hydra account. Once linked, the PI should see a tab at the top of their page labeled with their Program number, e.g. PSU17-2-001. If you do not see your program tab and you are the PI of a program please contact the resident astronomers (astronomer(at)het.as.utexas.edu) with your full name and program number and we will link the program if your TAC has completed their allocation submission.

Now you should be ready to submit your experiment through our Phase II system. To create a target list for the HET you will need to use our Target Submission Language. The best way to get started quickly is to look at one of the examples given on the TSL Example pages. NOTE: Use only US-ASCII endcoding for TSL submission files .

One of the most common mistakes in the submission of a Phase II is to upload and save the Phase II submission to your local account on hydra but to not submit it to the HET. This process is really 3 steps: 1) upload, 2) verify that it is ok, and 3) submit to the HET queue. Be sure to always do that last step.

Another common mistake is to submit targets under a priority for which you have no TAC allocated time (usually because you are using a template from the web or a previous trimester).

You may submit more targets than you have TAC allocation. When the HET has exceeded your TAC allocation in that priority bin you will be notified to defer any remaining targets active in the queue at that priority. If your program significantly exceeds its time allocation within one priority, the over-use will be deducted from remaining time at other priorities so that the program's total allocation is not exceeded.

Once submitted the targets have to be briefly reviewed by the resident astronomers at the start of the night to make sure that there are no huge mistakes or that your account has not been hacked. Once the targets are approved by the resident astronomer they will appear on your list of "Targets in the queue".

If you make a mistake with a Phase II, don't worry, you can "junk" these entries through the Phase III system.

You can submit as many Phase II files as you wish as often as you wish anytime after the TAC has granted you the time and before the end of the trimester.

If you are the PI of a project you can mange the access to this program tab under the "User Access" link at the top of your program tab. If you do not see the person you wish to give access to in the pull down menu then make sure that they have created an account on hydra.

If you have other questions or want to search through previously answered questions, please visit the HET observations/science Google Group ( groups.google.com/g/het-obs-sci ).

Last updated: Sat, 30 Dec 2023 03:19:33 +0000 stevenj