From our 2010 Zeitgeist blog you may have noticed some information about the relability and use of Faulkes Telescope North and South during 2010. Here is a more detailed break down of how we did on successful nights of observing, technical downtime, weather and more.
- The dome was open 80% of the time, while closed 17% for bad weather and 3% for technical reasons1.
- The dome was open and FTN was observing for 333 nights of 2010.2
- January was the best month for observing with the dome being open about 98% of the observational hours. March had the worst weather, closing the dome about 37% of the time. November had the most technical downtime at 7%.
- For the amount of time that FTN could be open and observing3, it did so 96% of the time.
- From the open
shutter time4 of the instruments, about:
- 63% was queue-based science observations, 18% real-time interface, 13% background observations5, 3% sky flats, 2% targets of opportunity6, and 1% manual observing7.
- The dome was open 48% of the time, while closed 42% for bad weather and 10% for technical reasons1.
- The dome was open and FTS was observing 246 nights of 20102.
- January was the best month for observing, with the dome being open about 75% of the observational hours. July had the worst weather, closing the dome about 74% of the time. December had the most technical down time of 29%.
- For the amount of time that FTS could be open and observing3, it did so 84% of the time.
- From the open
shutter time4 of the instruments, about:
- 73% was science observations, 11% real-time interface, 7% background observations5, 4% sky flats, 5% targets of opportunity6, and less than 1% manual observing7.
1 Technical reasons the dome was closed usually are mechanical or software related. 2 This is only taking into account the number of nights where the dome did not open at all, while several of the nights the dome may have only been open for a short amount of time. 3 The total amount of the time the telescope can observe while the weather is clear. 4 Open shutter time does not include breaks between observations, filter wheel or instrument changes, readout times, etc. This is the time that the instruments were exposing. 5 Background observations mostly consisted of standard star fields. 6 Where the user overrides the telescope for an event that happens without warning and suddenly, such as a GRB or new supernovae. 7 Usually for engineering work or commissioning of new instruments.
