Important Notes on Time Sharing (TS) Policy at the TNG
Researcher who would like to submit a proposal on exo-planetary science needing monitoring of Radial Velocities over a wide range of dates, should take into account the following considerations:
- There are several Large Programs on exo-planetary science ongoing at the TNG, with granted time until AOT57 (or 2028A). To optimize the scientific return for their science goals, the two main scientific groups with approved LPs (HARPS-N and GAPS collaborations) already agreed on sharing the observing time at the telescope.
- Exo-planetary science (with HARPS-N and/or GIANO-B) is not the only observing mode of the TNG. Other science cases with different instruments have been approved which means that dense monitoring with frequent observations every few days is not possible, even in case of TS. TS is only available when exo-planetary science programs are scheduled and even so, on a best effort basis.
- At the earliest time or at least two weeks before the closure of a new
call for Observing time (TAC, CAT, ITP, ORP) the researchers who knows that
their science goal could only be attained with TS should contact
the chairs of the 2 groups [Luca.Malavolta_at_unipd.it and Aldo.Bonomo_at_inaf.it]
expressing their request for the TS and accepting the following constraints:
- The scientific goals of the programs joining the TS should not overlap with the scientific goals of the programs already in the TS group;
- In case of possible overlap among the scientific goals, the programs should provide a well-defined target list not encompassing targets for which one of the programs in the TS has already expressed interest. In case of a strong and justified interest on the same target, a spirit of collaboration is encouraged and a policy on the use and publication of the data should be agreed before submitting the proposal. The time allocation committees judging the proposal should be informed of the possible conflict due to mutual interest and know in advance if the groups already agreed on collaborating;
- The scheduling of the targets of the new proposal will be organized on a best effort basis and in any case will not be detrimental for other programs already in the TS. Asking for TS is accepting the scheduling of the targets organized by one of the two main groups;
- PIs of the proposal accept to provide observers for the scheduled nights who: [1] will follow the scheduled observations from the schedulers of the two main groups (HARPS-N Collaboration and GAPS) and [2] will accept that the observing shift could be larger than the assigned time to their proposal (i.e. assigned 1 night to the proposal, but could be observing for 3 consecutive nights);
- PIs of the proposal accept that the calculated percentage of shared time will be based on the allocated time by the TAC and that the bad weather loss will be equally distributed with the same percentage;
- Time Constraint observations (transits) are typically not included in the TS, however the hours of the night outside the transit could be used for TS;
- PIs and observers of programs within the TS will respect a no disclosure of the data from other programs.
Proposals that fail to demonstrate that an agreement of TS has been reached will be considered as technical unfeasible by the TNG staff.