EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY

La Silla Observatory

SCIENCE OPERATION DEPARTMENT

SciOp Internal Use Only

Revision History

CONTENT

• 1- Introduction
  • 1.1- Purpose and Scope
  • 1.2- General Comments
  • 1.3- Stylistic Convention
  • 1.4- Documents and References
  • 1.5- Abbreviations and Acronyms
  • 1.6- Comments by the Reviewer
• 2- Clients, Services and Processes
  • 2.0- SciOps Scope
  • 2.1- Services Provided
  • 2.2- Clients
  • 2.3- Processes
• 3- Structure
  • 3.1- Introduction
  • 3.2- Instrument Core
  • 3.3- Instrument Force
• 4- Operation
  • 4.1- Night Operation
  • 4.2- Day Operation
    • 4.2.1- Telescope Coordinator
    • 4.2.2- Support Astronomer
    • 4.2.3- Background Tio
    • 4.2.4- Operation Engineer
  • 4.3- Daily operations Schedule

1- INTRODUCTION

1.1- PURPOSE AND SCOPE

This document is the result of the discussion that took place on Thu. 2002 Feb 14 at la Silla and Vitacura, based on an earlier draft of this document. Presence at that meeting, in La Silla, Andres Gonzalez, Ariel Sanchez, Cristian Esparza, Eduardo Celis, Emilio Barrios, Francisco Labrana, Gaetano Andreoni, George Hau, Jose Cortes, Karla Aubel, Lisa Germany, Malvina Billeres, Martin Kurster, Olivier Hainaut, Rolando Vega, Ivo Saviane, and in Vitacura, Gaspare Lo Curto, Kate Brooks and Leonardo Vanzi.

Version 0.91 was released to the LaSilla audience for discussion and comments. These comments were edited by MST. Comments included are written in italics. Regions affected by the comment are in red, and new version of the red text are in green.  Contributions are from Paul LeSaux (PLS), Rene Mendez (RME), and Michael Sterzik (MST). Emilio Barrios (EBA) detailled his comments at /sci/facilities/lasilla/telescopes/3p6/tecdoc/tmp/LaSillaSciOpPlan.html . The incorporation of these comments lead to v.0.9.2. Additional comments were received by Jorge Melnick. These and additional input from O.Hainaut were included to constitute 0.9.3, which is released for a second round of comments.

This document discusses the general structure of the Science Operation Department (SciOp) of La Silla, in the framework of the restructuration of the 2p2, 3p6 and NTT teams. This document will eventually become part of a larger document describing the Science Operation Department as a whole.

1.2- GENERAL COMMENTS

It will be clear to the gentle (JME) reader that the TIOs are getting much more responsibilities than in the past. The reason for this is that the TIOs are the ones who actually operate the observatory  (JME) telescopes, not the astronomers. Indeed, TIOs tend to have a longer life time in the organization (time scale of 10 yrs) than the astronomers (time scale of 2 yrs), therefore, they can accumulate much more experience and have a very broad overview of the telescopes and instrumentation. This is acknowledged in this plan, whose global idea is to distribute the responsibilities to whom they naturally below: a question about the best strategy to observe the spectral variability of a quasar in the near IR is for an astronomer, but a question about the best way to select and acquire a guide star in a crowded field for spectroscopic chopping-and-nodding observations is for the TIO.

1.3- STYLISTIC CONVENTION

In this document, "he" and "his" refer to the position described. In practice, these position can be occupied by people of any gender.

1.4- DOCUMENTS AND REFERENCES

[1] LSO-PLA-ESO-90000-4 SciOp Re-engineering: SciOp communications
[2] LSO-PLA-ESO-90000-5 SciOp Re-engineering: Administrative and Managerial internal structure

1.5- ABBREVIATIONS and ACRONYMS

2- CLIENTS, SERVICES and PROCESSES

2.1- SERVICES PROVIDED

SciOp provides astronomical data to its clients, as well as the information needed by the clients

• to obtain these data (e.g. instrument manuals, exposure time calculators, etc), and,
• to transform these astronomical data (i.e. measurements in adu as a function of the x,y position on a CCD) into astrophysical data (i.e. measurements in flux units (erg/s/m2/A/arcsec2) as a function of other physical quantities (wavelengths, RA, Dec,...)).

The data produced by SciOp (including those produced by Visiting Astronomers) must be of the best achievable technical quality (e.g. instrument always in focus), and must be calibrated -or, more specifically calibratable, i.e. they must be accompanied by a set of auxiliary data that allows the astronomer to fully remove the instrumental signature of the instrument (flat field, standard stars, etc.). These auxiliary data are defined in the calibration plan of each instrument.

In more details, the scope of SciOp is:

2.2- CLIENTS

The "clients" of SciOp are the members of the international astronomical community at large, and in priority the astronomers of the ESO member states.

More specifically, these includes:

• Visiting Astronomers (VAs, who will come to la Silla to perform their observations) and "Service Mode" Astronomers (SMAs), who don't come to la Silla, their observations being performed by SciOp staff, either in Service Mode (queue schedule) or as Delegated Observation Mode (on fixed dates).
• Potential astronomers: who may submit a project that would eventually get accepted, and who will then become VAs or SMAs.
• The Archive: the data produced by SciOp are archived in the ESO Science Archive (cf archive.eso.org) for use by future astronomers. The role of the archive is double: 1/ it constitutes a 100% reliable backup of the data, 2/ it constitutes a mine of data that can potentially be re-used for other purposes than those of the original project. It is therefore important that the data be calibrated (calibratable) and the instruments characterized.
• Projects and Technical Astronomers: SciOp hosts some projects (new instruments, prototypes, experiments...) and Guest Instruments (SHARP, CIGALE...). While SciOp is not responsible for these instruments, it shall give them full support to ensure the success of the project.

RME, MST: we do not agree. While SciOp should support instrument + telescope operation and some basic set-up tasks, astronomical support should not be included for visitor (or "guest") instruments under *any* circumstance.
Reply: OK. Text modified to make this clear:

• Projects and Technical Astronomers: SciOp hosts some projects (new instruments, prototypes, experiements...). Some of the SciOp astronomers can be deeply involved in these projects (e.g. as project scientist or project manager). Their schedule and support load is to be adjusted in order to accomodate these duties. Additionally, external astronomers attached to project (e.g. an instrument scientist from Garching or other institute) can be at La Silla for a fairly long time. These astronomers will be integrated as guest to SciOp, in order to improve communication, training, info, and to give them better support.
• Guest/Visitor instruments (such as SHARP, CIGALE...): SciOp is not responsible for these instruments. It will provide support only to the telescope-related aspects of the operation, i.e. Day + Night TIO, support astronomer for generic astronomical support (e.g. hints and tips on the telescope), but obviously no support for the instrument.
  

2.3- PROCESSES

From an "ISO-9001" point of view, the processes that belong to SciOp are the following:

• a-Production of Scientific Data: the input is the scientific question, the output is the corresponding observations replying to this question. SciOp will deal with all aspects of this process, i.e. helping the astronomer to formulate his question,

COMMENT: RME,MST: not our role to formulate a scientific questions for VA!.
Reply: OK: REMOVE... >i.e. helping the astr...question<.

to prepare a good proposal that will get time (assuming of course that it is a "good" question)

COMMENT: RME: only the technical aspects of the proposal.
Reply: OK. Text changed:

to prepare a technically sound proposal that will get time (assuming of course that it is a "good" question),

to prepare his observations so that they optimally reply to his question, help him performing the observations, or perform them ourselves (all flavors of Service Mode), and finally help him in the data reduction (not by reducing the data for him). Basically, all the technical aspect of his question are our job: with our help, he should find trivial to reply to his astronomical question.

• b-Operation of the instruments and telescopes: the input is the tons of hardware and software constituting the telescopes and instruments, the output is a scientific instrument, fully understood, certified and characterized. Obviously, this is an internal process (i.e we provide the input and use the output during the first process).

3- TECHNICAL STRUCTURE

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The SciOp Department will be constituted of Astronomers, Telescope and Instrument Operators (TIOs) and Operation Engineers. The main differences with the current Team structure are the following:

• SciOp will operate the 3 telescopes, while each team was operating only one telescope. This gives us a large potential of flexibility that was not available with the individual teams. The way we use this potential should increase both the overall efficiency, AND the individual satisfaction (i.e. possibility to learn new things, to teach things, to optimize tasks that were redundant in each team, leaving more time for more interesting tasks, etc, etc

COMMENT: PLE: I think that the redundancy is, in general, not that much otherwise this would mean we have been very unefficient since 1995 : I am precisely feeling the opposite. Anyhow this reengineering process may  try to assess these redundancies more accurately.
REPLY: Right. Not redundant WITHIN the team, but from team to team. For instance, each team has a documention officer, SciOp will probably have one. Changed:

..., to remove the duplication of tasks that currently exists because of they are done independently in each team,...

• SciOp will not include Electronic Engineers nor Electronic Technicians, who will belong to the LED. However, at least for the first year, at least some of the current Team Electronics will keep very close contacts with SciOp, so that their expertise is not lost by dilution in the Engineering Dptm (this is being discussed with LED)

COMMENT: EBA: Regarding the Electronic Function scope I'm in favor to keep J. Vilaza and J. Santana as a day Telescopes Controller to deal with all the maintenance tasks together with Operation Engineers and provide coverage for the instruments exchange and daily startups.
REPLY: This is the idea: that LED provides "operation support", who should be Santana/Vilaza -at least at the very beginning, till other members of LED. are certified to perform these tasks. However, the overall coordination stays with the telscope coordinators in SciOp, which eventually accecpts the work done by LED.

COMMENT: JME: I do not think this is a good idea. It will dilute the responsibility and coherence of LED
REPLY (ORH): the idea is not to tell LED what they should do. Nevertheless, it is important (-critical-) that the expertise of the current electronics be passed to LED. This is twofold:

• direct electronic expertise: it would be unrealistic to pretend that all their knowhow is completely described in the written documentation, however complete. Indeed, the teams currently use the procedures as support of their actions to guarantee that these are performed in a complete and repetitible way, but does not guarantee the swiftness of these actions, nor necessarilly their context
• hardware/system overview: currently, the electronic engineer of the team is also acting as system engineer, keeping the overview of the whole system. We consider critical that someone in LED 1) preserves that knowledge and overview of the system 2) disseminate that knowledge into LED.

COMMENT: MST: Another critical deficit is that SciOp - in the current configurtation - does not include a hardware engineer with broad system knowledge (a system engineer). In the case of the 3.6m telescope it was essential to have the system engineer close to operations, as several operational problems could only be correctly indentified and solved by understanding the complex interrelation of mechanics, electrics, electronics and software.
REPLY: this is the idea of the "close connection" with LED, which has to include a system eng. (probably R.Parra), who will be the supervisor of the technicians.

COMMENT: JME: I really think that we should switch modes asap aand not have this mode of LED people with "historic" ties with SciOp. Better to have a mode where LED has a Telescope Support Group headed by one of the "oldies".
REPLY: ok with the Tels Supp. Group lead by one of the current engineers. However, it is important that more than one person in that group has actual experience with the on-line work on the telescopes.

All these comments lead to this new version:

SciOp will not include Electronic Engineers nor Electronic Technicians, who will belong to the LED, where a "Telescope Support" sub-department will be formed to centralize direct support to the telescopes. At least for the first year, this sub-department will be constituted by some of the current Team Electronics, so that their expertise is not lost by dilution in the Engineering Dptm. One senior engineer from the current teams should be the head of that sub-department; he shall keep an overview  of the system (this is being discussed with Head of LED).

COMMENT: EBA: If the team wants to improve the first troubleshooting level, SciOp have to have the following function scope or level of expertise on: Software, Electronic, Optics, Day AND/OR Night Operation, Safety, Cryogenic, Administration, Astronomy, Weather Conditions, Data reduction (As a reference check the Team Task section 4.2.4 on the The Team Theme Plan). If not, we will be back to the Night Assistance and the Ing. Operation Group (as I know, like Paranal).
REPLY: Agreed: we should maintain first level of troubleshooting in the areas mentioned.  Added:

The expertize to perform first level of troubleshooting and basic preventive maintenance should be maintained within SciOp.

COMMENT: MST: essentially correct, the question of INSTRUMENT CHANGEOVERS HAS TO BE ADDRESSES for the 3p6 (operations? engineering? mechanics?).
REPLY: Any task is either performed internally (SciOp, eg. routine maintenance measurements performed by running and interpretting a template script), or externally, e.g. instrument change over. In that case, the provider is responsible, and SciOp accept (or not) the job done. Added:

In that framework, each task will either be performed internally (according to internal SciOp procedure), or externally (e.g. 3.6m top ring change will be handled by LED). In case it is performed by an external provider, SciOp will accept (or not) the job done.

The main difference between La Silla SciOp and Paranal SciOp is that, in La Silla, SciOp "owns" the telescopes and instruments, on which the support teams and departments will perform work for us. In Paranal, the Engineering Dptm owns the telescope and instruments, and lend them to SciOp for the night. The main advantage of the La Silla scheme is that SciOp owns the complete processes (c.f. previous section).

COMMENT (JME):  what is the main disadvantage?
The main disadvantage of this scheme is that most of the maintenance work will be "outsourced" to LED; to work properly, it will require a very good coordination. This makes the role of the Telescope Coordinator crutial.

3.2- INSTRUMENT NUCLEUS

3.2- INSTRUMENT CORE

INSTRUMENT SCIENTIST

Each instrument (e.g. EMMI, WFI...) will have an INSTRUMENT SCIENTIST (astronomer) and an INSTRUMENT TIO. Together, the Instrument Scientist and Instrument TIO form the INSTRUMENT CORE that concentrate all the expertise on the instrument: if there is some info or knowledge on the instrument, the Core should have it.

PLE: Until now an important part of that expertise has been located in operation engineer, team electronics and optics (A. Gilliotte).
MST: It appears reasanable that some specialized experience will stay with these experts (e.g. optical layout, cryogenics, electronics).
REPLY: OK. text changed:

CORE that concentrates all the operation-related expertise on the instrument: if there is some info or knowledge related to the operation of an instrument, the Core should have it. Obviously, some of the specialized experience will stay with the corresponding expert (e.g. optical layout, cryogenics, electronics...).

The role of the instrument scientist will be very similar to that of the current instrument scientist, i.e. more specifically

• defining and implementing (possibly with the support of EngDpt, SWC...) observing modes
• defining and implementing the calibration plan,
• writing and maintaining the relevant documentation (user's manual, instrument web pages, etc).
• training other SciOp members on the use of the instrument (e.g. coaching other astronomers in view of them giving support to the clients, etc)
• track pending problems and action points related to the instrument (e.g. give a few phone calls to make sure that things keep moving)

• develop data processing recipes. Priority goes to recipes to aiming at a fairly automatic processing of calibration plan data to monitor the health of the instrument. Secondly, to process easilly observations on-line (e.g. standard wavelength calibration for all fixed modes (grisms), standard solution for echelle gratings, etc.)
  

It is  important to note that the SciOp Operation Engineers will be deeply involved in most of these points. Also note that it is not expected that the instrument scientist will perform all the support on his instrument.

INSTRUMENT TIO

The instrument scientist will be assisted by a TIO, who will be have expert knowledge of that instrument, both for day and night operation. The role of the Instrument TIO can be summarized as following:

• assist the Instrument Scientist in testing observation modes,
• assist the Instrument Scientist to perform the calibration plan (e.g make sure that the frames needed are obtained, obtain more if needed).
• together with the Instrument Scientist, define the best way to operate the instrument at night
• coach other TIOs on how to operate the instrument in the best way,
• track pending problems and action points related to the instrument (e.g. give a few phone calls to make sure that things keep moving).
• together with the operation engineers, define and improve the operation procedures and check list related to that instrument (all TIOs should always try to optimize operation procedures and check-list -while respecting the strict conf.Ctrl-, but naturally, as they know "their" instrument better than anybody else, they will be most productive for that instrument).

It is important to note that the Instrument TIO does not have to work only on that instrument. The "Instrument TIO" job is more a background task that he can perform during his "background turno" (former Mid-Day/Mid-Night, cf below), during the night (long exposures), during the day (phone calls), etc... While it is desirable that he keeps accumulating experience on the instrument (e.g. operating it at night, performing set-up at day, etc), it is also important that he spends some "background" time on the instrument, e.g. when performing some tests while it is in the lab. In summary, the actions related to the "Instrument TIO" job have a time-scale of weeks/months (following up problems, testing new modes) and not day-by-day.

Also, only one TIO is "Instrument TIO" for a given instrument, not 2, in order not to dilute responsibility. Of course, the Instrument TIO can appoint one or various delegates, for instance in his contra-turno, or to tackle with a specific issue, but he will remain the one "officially" in charge.
COMMENT (JME): Really?
REPLY: Yes. We consider important that one person tracks things down and responds.

COMMENT: PLE, MST: At least for a transition period the Instrument TIO should get trained her/himself by operation engineer , electronics, optics an whoever else.
REPLY: OK. Text added:

To reach the level of full "Instrument TIO", it is likely that some additional training will be required by the operation engineer, electronics, optics, and/or whoever needed.

COMMENT: PLE: Which instruments are available in off line in a lab ? Formerly at 3.6 in particular it was only possible (but almost never allowed) to use most instruments during their runs. Are they still such cases?
REPLY: MST: At the 3.6, EFOSC, CES and later HARPS have the possibilities for off-line calibations (CCD testing, wavelength stability, resolution test). In the case of NTT for instance all instruments are always mounted but dayly tasks often do not leave time for getting expertise or testing improvements.

COMMENT: PLE: It may be necessary to drop some of these tasks and/or to find ways to make other ones faster ( more automatic ).
In the particular case of new instruments ( HARPS ) I feel the need to express my previous experience for instance with EMMI : as we tried to integrate softly the newcomer without disturbing La Silla operations, no special "Instrument Force" was dedicated to it, as all of us kept there full foreground duty. This led to a period of at least one year during which we operated the instrument without knowing it reasonably well and to a setup quality which I later on considered retrospectively shameful. I hope we can do it better next time.
I mean we'll be able to dedicate a team full time or so to the new instrument. I have always wittnessed this duality at La Silla : everybody is shared in variable %  between two kind of tasks :
- foreground routine or trouble shooting tasks needing clockwork turnos to ensure full coverage
- background development and improvement activities with flexible schedule to be here when "things" happen.
For me, this document is saying that the background % should increase for every TIO. So unless we assume TIO are not busy enough presently, their foreground % must decrease.
REPLY: MST: Infact, I do feel that operating with 3 TIOs/per turno/per telescope leaves free resources that can go in a higher background %. E.g. it should be sufficient to operate the 3p6+NTT with 2 day + 2 night + only ONE day/night TIO, free one fill day/night TIO for background...)
REPLY: ORH: we should aim at avoiding the EMMI-like situation at all cost: an instrument arrives, it is commissioned, then accepted -or not. In this document, we have the right to be idealistic.

From the administrative point of view, the "Instrument TIO" title will appear in the Goals and Objective. The evaluation criteria will be (these are examples, not an exhaustive list): efficiency in following up problem reports (not in solving them, which is the task of the person/deptm to whom the problem is assigned), efficiency in performing the calibration plan, in coaching other TIOs, etc. For the first year, there will of course be some real-time adjustments to the G&O: the idea is definitely not to sack anybody on this new responsibility, but to get the best out of the system, and to get the system as good as possible.

COMMENT: PLS: An other remark is that every TIO will interact with two "leaders" :  on line coordinator and Instrument Scientist related to its two kinds of tasks : foreground and background and will have to keep a balance between both. Although one must not necessarily expect conflicts, some thought may be given to this situation. For instance it may be adequate for an Instrument TIO to change its presence schedule to attend an instrument event. (MST: The responasabilities of the TIO and the instrument force should be clearly defined in the G&Os, and therefore not confilict within the team. Instrument forces should be seen as "working" entities, but not as administrative ones.
REPLY: this is the idea: Instrument Forces/Instrument Nuclei are technical structure, with a technical leader. Coordinator is the on-line operation manager. Head of TIO section is the administrative supervisor. All these structure overlap one the same people, but have very well separated fields of application. Text added below in instrument forces.

TELESCOPE SCIENTIST/TIO

In a similar way, each telescope (NTT, 3.6, 2.2) will have a Telescope Scientist and Telescope TIO, forming a Telescope Core. The Telescope Core has the same role for the telescope and related systems as the Instrument Core for the instruments. For instance, the mirrors, domes, hydraulics, etc... are under the Telescope Scientist/TIO Core' responsibility.

MST, RME: we think that we do not need a special "telescope TIO" - the tasks to be overssen are either too complex (e.g. image quality monitoring, dome mechanics), or a related to maintenance work (e.g. mirror quality monitoring and cleaning), i.e. LEDt, or Optics.
REPLY: MST: I understand the generic tasks here image quality and pointing performance assessment. Infact, an astronomer should supervise these activities. But understanding of these tasks should be rather delagated to engineers (either the system engineer (which we dont have), or the operations/configuration control managers), and not to TIOs.
REPLY: ORH: Don't underestimate the TIOs: among the Telescope TIOs' tasks: maintenance of the pointing model, Mirror model, follow-up of telescope-related action points and problem reports... Text changed:

3.3- INSTRUMENT FORCE

The various Instrument Nuclei are combined into "INSTRUMENT FORCES"; the various Instrument Forces that come into mind are:

• Imaging: WFI and SuSI
• Visible spectro imagers: EFOSC2 and EMMI
• IR: SofI and TIMMI2
• High-res spectro: CES/HARPS, FEROS, EMMI/Echelle
• Telescopes

These forces should exchange expertise at all levels: observation procedures, data reduction, hints and tips, etc. Also, the Instrument Scientist of one of the instrument will almost automatically be able to give basic support on the others of the same instrument force. This should foster communication between the current teams. One Core can belong to several Forces. Other forces could be considered, eg 2p2 (=2p2 + WFI + FEROS), NTT (= NTT+EMMI+SUSI+SOFI), 3p6 (=3p6+ EFOSC+ TIMMI + CES/HARPS)

MST.RME,PLE: We all like the idea of the "crossteam" forces better.
REPLY: thx :-)

Note that it is not expected from the Instrument Forces to do all the support/operation of their respective instrument (it is not feasible, for instance SofI is used ~150n/yr, and TIMMI about 100n/yr, totalling 250n/yr, i.e. too much for 2 astronomers even if they were doing only support).
COMMENT (JME): ?? make the force larger. Why do you only have 2 scientists here?
REPLY: OK, let's expand:

In addition to the Instrument Scientists of the instruments constituting it, the Force will also include additional scientists, i.e. "new" astronomers who are not yet Instrument Scientists, and "senior" scientists (this includes Fellows who completed their first year) who fully master all the instruments from one Force and are expanding to other Forces. In that framework, the support of a given instrument will be provided by the astronomers of its Force, not only by the Instrument Scientists. The average nr of nights during which each instrument is scheduled must be taken into account when constituting the forces and, to a certain extend, when hiring replacement for leaving scientists.

At this point, the 5 above-mentioned forces should meet briefly, but fairly formally (e.g. every 2 months), with the following agenda:

• important news,
• new important problems (i.e. that could be of interest for the other nuclei)
• follow-up of previous important problems
• new hints and tip.

Each of these meeting should be summarize briefly in a "monthly instrument force report", which will 1/ diffuse the info to SciOp as a whole, 2/ document and archive the problems, achievement, hints and tips..., 3/ provide input for the bimonthly SciOp report that the head of SciOp has to produce for the upper management (i.e. help me!).

In the future, the rhythm and scope of these meetings will be adjusted depending of the usefulness of the first ones.

It must be noted that the Instrument Core and Instrument Force structure is a technical structure, which obviously overlaps with the administrative structure (described in [2]) since the same people are involved. It is not a problem, since these structures have well defined scopes that are not overlaping.

3.4- OPERATION ENGINEER

COMMENTS: PLS: I have also the feeling that some previous tasks of the operation engineers are at least partly transferred to the Instrumet TIOs and Scientists. Namely:
to IS:
- training other department members to use the instrument.
- track pending problems
to Ins. TIO
 - testing obsevation modes
 - training other TIOs on the best way to use instrument
 - track pending problems.

First I think there are enough problems to leave some to engineers.
Training TIOs may remain part of their job for still quite a while.
They could keep working on web pages for a while too at least training  TIOs to create documentation in it and to define and describe procedures.

They should remain in charge of templates and configuration control unless these are completely outsourced to SWC (MST: NO, it is critical to have the expertise in the SciOp dept!).
 Last but not the least they should get involved in or develop small projects generally in relation with SWC.
But mainly it must be explained here why and which kind of engineers are necessary inside the SciOp department.
And this can only be done by astronomers with perhaps some TIO comments.
COMMENT: JME: The task of the Op.Eng. is not well defined. If most of their time is devoted to engineering, lets move them to LED!
COMMENT: JME: what about configuration control?

REPLY: this section was created to clarify the role of the OpEng. and Conf.Ctrl

• Configuration control officer: enforce and verify general configuration control. Some specific aspects of the conf.Ctrl are delegated to other Department (namely SWC for VLT software and related, and Eng. for hardware), but the overall control stays with the OpEng. This responsibility include training of newcommers to the concept of configuration control, and countinuous training on that topic to all staff.
  
• Development, testing, approval, implementation and maintenance of operation procedures and check lists. Some procedures can be developped by other SciOp members (specifically the Forces), but OpEngs have the final word for approval. 
• General training of TIOs to operation, esp. the aspects of the use of operation and maintenance procedures and check lists, configuration control, etc, and the general philosophy of operation of  VLT-like systems.
• In collaboration with the instrument forces, development, testing, approval, implementation of observations, calibration, set-up and maintenance templates. OpEng has the power to approve/reject any change.
  
• Participation to the maintenance plan, and to general operation.  While it is important that the OpEng actually performs the operations in order to test procedures, check that they are not obsolescent, etc, this is supposed to take only a small fraction of their time.

4- OPERATION

4.1- NIGHT OPERATION

No major change with respect to the current system:

• A Night TIO is in charge of the night operation. He has FULL RESPONSIBILITY on the telescopes, its instruments, and its user. This includes:
  • Decision to close the telescope because of weather conditions (i.e. no formal need to call the La Silla Coordinator)
  • Decision to re-open (i.e. no need to call the La Silla Coordinator)
  • Decision to call standby SciOp or Support Teams (LED, SWC...). Head of SciOp will  approve overtime or whatever other administrative stuff related to emergency night call..
  • decision to shut-down the telescope because of un-recoverable problem, etc

  Of course, the night TIO can always call whoever he things can help in his decision, or whoever he things can help make his decision enforced (i.e. if the Visiting Astronomer wants to get explanation on the humidity rules by an astronomer, get the Support Astronomer, Shift Leader (see below) or head of SciOp to come to help). In particular, for weather matters, an unexperienced Night TIO should call a more senior Night TIO.

• The Support Astronomer will assist the TIO and the Visiting Astronomer for all astronomical aspects of the observations. The Support Astronomer is supposed to give an extended introduction to the Visitor (i.e. hold his hand at least till the first successful science exposure is read out), and is supposed to be on "stand-by" (available in the control room, in his office, or anywhere else till ~2AM, then on call later for important questions/problems that should not wait till the next day). The Suppport Astronomer must be "certified" (cf SciOp Internal Training Plan) for the telescope and instrument he supports, meaning that he will be able to perform some troubleshooting (e.g. diagnoze and fix or work-around a crashed template).

4.2- DAY OPERATION

4.2.1- TELESCOPE COORDINATOR

As maintenance will be mostly performed by "outsiders" (i.e. from Engineering Dpt and SWC), coordination will be of critical importance.

For each telescope, the Day TIO will be in charge of that coordination (and be TELESCOPE COORDINATOR). His role is equivalent to that of the Paranal's UT Manager. On a day-to-day basis, he will

• Coordinate with Eng.Dept and SWC the maintenance actions
• Coordinate with outsiders and insiders the various actions to be taken
• Accept (or not) the work performed on the telescope by other teams or internal teams
• Coordinate with the support astronomer/visiting astronomer the time of start-up and the time of the hand-over.
• Keep a log of the actions taken
• Finally, deliver the telescope in perfect condition to the Night TIO. (in summer time, the telescope can be handed over to the "Background TIO" who will receive it on behalf of the Night TIO arriving later).
• On Tuesdays, he will check the pending problems and action points, and call the responsible person (or have them called) for a status report
• On Wednesday, he will 1/ chair the weekly operation meeting during which the problems and action points are discussed 2/ issue the internal and external week reports.

One of the Telescope Coordinators (typically a "senior" one) will be SCIOP COORDINATOR, i.e. in addition to coordinate his telescope, he will also coordinate the actions that affect SciOp as a whole. He will be in charge of representing SciOp at the Action Point Meeting on Thu, and -if needed- invite additional SciOp members to be present at that meeting. He is also the person who mans the lasilla@eso.org account (cf [1])

4.2.2- SUPPORT ASTRONOMERS

Durning the day (starting at a decent time considering the time he went to bed the night before), the Support Astronomer will

• Get informed about the end of the previous night, if relevant
• Check that the day calibrations taken were successful and that all required calibrations were obtained.
• Give off-line (P2PP and Co) intro if required
• Background work

4.2.3- SHIFT LEADER

4.2.3- BACKGROUND TIO

The third TIO will either

• perform some background work (e.g on his instrument, on documention, etc), or
• be on training.

It should be noted that if the 3rd TIO is needed for on-line work, this has priority on any background task. For instance, if he is needed for urgent trouble shooting, problem solving, or to ensure the day/night transition, he should stop his background activities.

4.2.4- OPERATION ENGINEERS

They participate to maintenance plan, and on-line operation. Most of their time should be devoted to configuration control and operation developments, as described above

Many comments were done on this super-short section. They led to the new Section 4.3- OpEng. The comments are addressed there.

4.3.  DAILY OPERATION SCHEDULE

• 08:00 Telescope coordinators get the reports of the night and assign the new problems/request to the relevant department. In case of urgent item, make sure that the corresponding people get the info and act. Adjust the operation plan of the day to cope with that emergency (note that this should be an exception). 
• 08:00--12:00 Troubleshooting of previous night pending problems, Calibrations and set-up for night, maintenance Plan, in that order of priority. Note that in normal operation (i.e. not in technical time, there is no "installation/test of improvement" - this should go to technical time).
• 13:30--14:00 Dayly Coordination meeting: Attendance compulsory for the 3 telecope coordinators, OpEng, a coordinator from Eng and a coordinator from SWC. Coordinators can also "invite" specific specialists (eg. instrumentation, mechanics) or other departments (ISG, Hotel...). Support astronomers are expected to attend unless they are on full night schedule. It must be noted that this is an open meeting, everybody is welcome. This meeting will also be the base for the Coordinators to prepare the weekly report on a day-by-day bases. 
• Brief report of the night, its problems and what is being done to solve them.
• Brief report of actions under way
• Coordination of the next 24h, esp. 
• actions to be taken in the afternoon
  
• time of the startup for each telescope, and time of start of observations. Here should come a very brief summary of the observing program and of its technical implication.
• scheduled maintenance actions for the next morning.
• 14:00--16:30: Operation, complete what is left from the morning
• Wednesday only: 14:00-15:00: Weekly coordination meeting. All the pending problems are reviewed, as well as the action points. New action points are dicussed. At the end of that meeting, the Coordinators should enter the final comments in the Remedy system, and prepare the weekly reports, both the external one (generated by Remedy) to be sent to astro, and the internal one, which includes the summary of the week for the next turno. It is important to note that this coordination meeting must be prepared in advance: at the latest on Mon. or Tue., the Coordinators should contact the provider for each problems for feedback (unless that feedback appears in the problem report).
• ~16:30: Startup (time to be adjusted depending on the season and the need). All maintenance actions stop.
• ~17:30: Start of calibrations, then observations.
• Just before twilight:  "hand over" from the day TIO to the night (or mid/day/night) TIO, with the Supp.Astro: pass the information of the day to the night people.