News

FTS Statistics for 2011:

• Closed for a total of 113 full nights;
• Dome was open for about 83% of the time the weather was good and observations could take place;
• Out of the total amount of time^1,2,3 which was available to on-sky observing (combining open, weather, and technical reasons which can be either software or mechanical related) is: open – 51%, weather – 38%, tech – 11%;
• The open shutter time is the time that the CCD is exposing.  This does not take into account readout times of the CCD or the time in between filter changes.  About 74% of the open shutter time was robotic science observations, 12% real-time observing for UK and Hawaii schools, 8% background observations, 4% sky flats, 2% ToOs (targets of opportunity), and less than a percent of manual or engineering operations;
• 876.5 hours of observing time were allocated for UK schools;
• 82.5 hours of observing time were allocated for Hawaii schools.

FTN statistics for 2011:

• Closed for a total of 44 full nights;
• Dome was open for about 92% of the time that the weather was good and observations could take place;
• Out of the total amount of time^1,2 which was available to on-sky observing (combining open, weather, and technical reasons which can be either software or mechanical related) is: open – 74%, weather – 19%, tech – 7%;

• The open shutter time is the time that the CCD is exposing.  This does not take into account readout times of the CCD or the time in between filter changes.  About 66% of the open shutter time was robotic science observations, 18% real-time observing for UK and Hawaii schools, 12% background observations, 2% sky flats, 1% ToOs (targets of opportunity), and 1% of manual or engineering operations;
• 805.5 hours of observing time were allocated for UK schools;
• 789.75 hours of observing time were allocated for Hawaii schools;
• Site manager Mark Elphick (based on 200 days of the year, although is most likely more) traveled approximately 19200 miles (3700 km) in 2011 (Maui is only 48 miles long) with the equivalent of 249 miles (606 km) in altitude (doubled if you count the descent), which is about twice the height of the average orbital altitude of the International Space Station.

Footnotes:

¹ There are times when the telescope is down due to weather and technical reasons simultaneously, this does not take that into account.

² There are also times when the telescope is not open due to cloud. Since the cloud is not damaging to the telescope it is not counted in the weather down time.

³ The down time due to technical reasons takes into account the engineering time which is based on 3 days around the Full Moon.  What it doesn’t take out are planned engineering trips which run over the Full Moon engineering time.  Taking this into account brings the technical down time to about 7% on FTS.