Observing Constraints and Classification Rules
General Observing Constraints
Every requested observation has multiple observing constraints. The observing constraints are:
- the allowable brightest lunar phase
- the allowable smallest moon-to-object angular separation
- the allowable maximum airmass
- the allowable maximum image size: 'Image Quality' measure as FWHM at observed wavelength and airmass
- the Turbulence category (TC) for SPHERE, MUSE, ERIS and VLTI instruments that use full-AO. This combines probability of realisation of seeing and coherence time.
- the allowable sky transparency
- the allowable maximum Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) should be provided for all instruments. The default value is set to 30 mm and should be fine for all non-IR instruments. All instruments include PWV in the ETC calculations that can be used to evaluate the impact of different PWV values on data.
- the allowable twilight constraint that defines the earliest time in minutes with respect to the end of the evening astronomical twilight when the execution of the OB can be started (see the note below).
- the allowable absolute time window for the start of the observation (i.e. for time critical events, multi-epoch monitoring)
- the allowable local sidereal time range for the entire observation (e.g. for ADI observation)
The Observing Constraints are specified by the user at Phase 2 for each Observation Block. Since the execution conditions required by each programme are an important ingredient in the process of building up the Long Term Schedule of an observing semester, and thus determine which programmes can or cannot be scheduled, users are not allowed to specify at Phase 2 constraints that are more strict than those specified in the original proposal. Users can however relax the constraints during the submission of their Phase 2 material. The values in the OB constraint sets that are selected (and approved) during Phase 2 preparation (and review) cannot be changed later during the observing period.
Note about the twilight constraint: this observing constraint has been introduced to allow specifying start of observation with respect to the start of the night: e.g. to delay start of observations for faint targets until the sky gets darker, or allow starting observations for very bright targets already during the twilight. The original motivation for this constraint is related to sky brightness in near-IR that is affected by excitation of OH lines, and is not affected by other constraints (e.g. moon distance/phase). It does not apply to astronomical twilight at the end of the night (i.e. sunrise).
General Classification Rules
Quality Control of OBs executed in Service Mode will be based on the specified constraints in the OB for airmass, atmospheric transparency, image quality/seeing, moon constraints, twilight constraint, as well as Strehl ratio for Adaptive Optics mode observations (as requested).
Details of the classification rules are available on the PSO QC0 OB grading page.
Additional Observing Constraints and Classification Rules for VLTI
Sky transparency
The AO systems MACAO or CIAO at the UTs and the tip-tilt system NAOMI at the ATs can be used only if the sky conditions are better than THICK. A calibration of the photometric spectrum of VLTI instruments is not precise to the level of PHO conditions of the VLT instruments. As a result, a sky transparency better than CLR should not be requested.
Moon constraint
The sky background introduced by the moon does not significantly affect the data quality for near and mid-infrared interferometry. There are some moon restrictions due to the guiding of the telescopes of up to a required distance of 20 deg between science target and the moon. For service mode observations, ESO Science Operations takes into account these restrictions. As a result, a moon constraint is not part of the constraint set of VLTI instruments.
Airmass
The airmass constraint is active for VLTI OBs with defaults of 1.6 for GRAVITY and 2.0 for PIONIER and MATISSE. These values shall normally not be changed.
Baseline configuration
The choice of the baseline configuration must be indicated in each OB in the baseline field of the acquisition templates of any of the VLTI instruments. We use broad baseline designations small, medium, large, astrometric, UTs, see for more details http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/telescopes/vlti/configuration/P105.html . Baseline configurations can be specified as a keyword list, where the first entry denotes the primary choice, and other entries denote alternative choices. For example 'small, medium' means that the small configuration is the primary choice, and the medium configuration can be used as an alternative.
Choices of baseline configurations (including alternative configurations if present) need to be consistent across different OBs within the same concatenation.
Type of VLTI observations
There is a keyword in the acquisition templates of all VLTI instruments, where we ask to tag the observation with one or more of the types snapshot, time-series, imaging, astrometry, as already specified in the Phase 1 proposal, see https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/cfp/cfp105/recent-changes.html . Valid combinations of VLTI types are imaging and time-series, astrometry and time-series, and astrometry and snapshot.
Intervals of local sidereal time (LST)
The LST constraint shall only be used in cases where there is a strong scientific reason for this constraint. The observability will be calculated on Paranal, and shall not any longer be encoded into the LST constraint when preparing OBs. Still, the observer needs to make sure that the target coordinates are observable with the specified baseline configurations, and that SCI and CAL OBs in a concatenation can be observed back-to-back.
Time constraints
Absolute time constraints at which an OB shall be executed must be entered in the time constraint section of the individual OB. Please be aware that there are only a limited number of service mode nights available per period and that baseline configuration are scheduled blockwise. It is thus important to check that the desired baseline configuration is indeed available in service mode during the specified time interval.
Additional Observing Constraints and Classification Rules for PIONIER
Sky transparency
Observations in the IR regime may require clear sky conditiona depending on the brightness of the target. For the required sky transparency for different object magnitudes and instrument modes, please see the latest information on the PIONIER instrument webpage.
Seeing
The specified seeing constraint is compared to the optical seeing delivered by the DIMM. The exact relationship between seeing, MACAO/STRAP performance, IRIS performance, and final data quality is not yet known in detail. However, with the use of MACAO/STRAP and IRIS, the injection of flux into the PIONIER fibers remains effective, even for moderate conditions. For the required seeing for different object magnitudes and instrument modes, please see the PIONIER instrument webpage.
Pointing Restrictions
The feasible HA range for different configurations with PIONIER is shown in the plots at VLTI Configurations page (click on the links named after the 4 different 4-telescope configurations offered).
Intervals of local sidereal time (LST)
The 30 min before and after SCI extensions of the CAL LST intervals is reduced to 15 min for PIONIER. PIONIER observations can also use a
CAL1-SCI-CAL2-SCI-CAL3
sequence without asking for a waiver.
In this case, both SCI OBs need to be identical, in particular need to observe the same target and have the same LST intervals. CAL1 and CAL3 require LST intervals as in the regular case above. CAL2 needs LST intervals that equal those of either SCI, CAL1, or CAL2.