HET Beginning-Trimester Report
  Second Period of 2020
April 1 - July 31

This report is primarily to give updates to PIs on recent changes/improvements and to summarize the determination of time allocations for the 20-2 trimester.


Updates on recent changes/improvements:


Goldilocks daily HPF data reduction

Goldilocks is a an automatic pipeline for the HPF instrument at the HET. The pipeline reduces the previous night's data the following morning at 11:30am (length of reduction is 1-2 hours) and provides users with reduced spectra to either adjust their program/targets or quickly turn observations into a scientific publication. Although the primary goal of the software is to quickly reduce the HPF data products, we still aim to provide the highest quality reductions possible for both spectral and radial velocity analysis.  More details about the algorithms and products are found here: 
https://github.com/grzeimann/Goldilocks_Documentation

For consistency within a program or across programs, if you would like older data reduced, please contact Greg Zeimann, grzeimann@gmail.com.  The pipeline is currently working backwards in time to reduce a large portion of the already acquired HPF data, but it may not have gotten to your specific observations quite yet.  

Also, given the vast amount of data produced by the instrument, it is not always easy to catch issues or times when the pipeline did not perform as designed.  Again, if you notice an issue feel free to contact Greg Zeimann.

Finally, your "new data" emails for HPF observations will include the path to your reduced data on TACC. Please try this out and let us know if you have any problems or questions.


Updated night report reader and improved guider metrology data

In response to user requests we have updated the HET night report reader available publicly at the following link:
https://het.as.utexas.edu/HET/hetweb/vlrweb/RR/reader.php

Note that we display target ID numbers for all science targets so that target names are not made public. The program IDs are hyperlinks which take you to your program's page in Hydra (if you are already logged on Hydra). Additional feedback is welcome on this report, although most users will find more useful information in their Hydra interface.

This night report contains the following columns which show average values over the period of time when each target was being observed. These columns are also reproduced in the "Objects Observed" page available from your programs tab in Hydra.
IQ*
arcsec
FWHM of guide star(s)
Dimm
arcsec
Image Quality as estimated by a nearby Differential Image Motion Monitor
SkySBrt*
mag/arcsec2
Sky surface brightness as estimated from the guider cameras
Skytrans*

percentage
Transparency as determined by catalog magnitude of guide star
SNR

signal-to-noise ratio, used for HPF targets only right now, based on continuum level in order 19 (~1 micron) in the Goldilocks reduction

*Note that the guiders have B/g/r/i filter changers, and are set to the filter most closely matching the science instrument in use:
VIRUS: g`
LRS2-B: g`
LRS2-R: r`
HPF: i`

In your program's page/tab on Hydra, the "objects observed" also contains the following metrology data:
  "S/N (per res)"  same as SNR above
  "DIMM fwhm"  same as Dimm above
  "IQ fwhm"   same as IQ above
  "Sky conditions"  show the sky surface brightness, guide camera filter, and transparency in parentheses like:
       19.45 in g` (0.65)
     where the SkySBrt = 19.45 mag/arcsec2
                 the guider filter was g`
                 the Skytrans = 65%   




Commissioning, Engineering, and Guaranteed Time allocations

The HET Board granted the following allocations for the 20-2 period:

In total the Board granted 343 hours of Comm/Eng/GTO time in 20-2.  (323h on-sky and 20h for HET operations)


The Board also granted 17.5 hours of time to the LIGO HET followup project, but this time has not been subtracted from the time available, since the probability of triggering is low (but has very high potential for scientific significance).
(NB - with the LIGO/VIRGO shutdown in late March, there can be no GW event triggers for this program)



Breakdown of how science hours for TACs at each partner were determined:

quantity
Apr
(hrs)
May
(hrs)
Jun
(hrs)
Jul
(hrs)
Total
(hrs)
18deg-18deg
248.20
224.58
199.88
215.15
887.82
Weather-insensitive
engineering time
5
5
5
5
20.00
"Operational" time
243.20
219.58
194.88
210.15
867.82
Weather loss frac. 0.32
0.32
0.38
0.48

Efficiency loss frac.
(align+PRs)
0.081
0.081
0.089
0.100

"Clear science" time
152.43
138.23
110.78
99.30
500.74
Com/Eng/GTO time




323.00
"Allowed" hours
given to TACs
for science




177.74


Hours allowed for each TAC as determined February 25, 2020:

Partner
Share
Notes
Total hours
allowed
Allocated
as of Apr 1
Goettingen
0.0085

1.5
1.5
Munich
0.0590

10.5
10.5
PSU
0.2568
time trade: 45.64 - 4.75
40.9
40.0
UT
0.6757
time trade: 120.10 + 4.75
124.8
124.1

Note that TACs may allocate up to 8.3% at P0, 25% at P1, 33.3% at P2 and 33.3% at P3; P4 allocations are not restricted. Priorities of Com/Eng/GTO time are assigned by the HET Board and not from this formula.

Also note that the PSU and UT TACs have elected not to allocate a small amount of time (<1h each) which can be allocated to targets-of-opportunity which arise later in the trimester





SJ, 1 Apr 2020