Large and Treasury Program Proposals

Proposers submitting Large and Treasury programs are asked to include additional technical detail in the "Description of the Observations" section to provide information on the scheduling aspects of their program. Investigators interested in proposing Treasury/Large programs are encouraged to consult this page which provides a general description on how these programs are scheduled and summarizes technical and scheduling information that is important for these programs.

Scheduling Large Programs (PDF):
http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/documents/uir/UIR_Large.pdf

This User Information Report describes how Large programs can affect the overall schedule of HST and how observers can optimize their scientiific return while minimizing difficulties in scheduling their program.

Large Program Targets

The following list of links contains plots for a variety of possible Large Program targets. They show, for the closest point to each target in a 5x5 degree grid, the number of days each spacecraft orientation is schedulable during the cycle, the ORIENT angles obtainable for each day of the cycle "year" and the target visibility. In the plots, red corresponds to 3-gyro operations, blue/green correspond to 2-gyro operations, and gold corresponds to times when there is low (<30 minutes) visibility.

For more details, see Observation Planning in Two-Gyro Mode (PDF): http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/TwoGyroMode/AllSkyInformation/documents/obsplanning.pdf.

• COSMOS 2-Degree ACS Survey
• Chandra Deep Field North + Hubble Deep Field North + GOODS North
• Chandra Deep Field South + GOODS South + Ultra Deep Field
• Brown - Andromeda Field
• Groth Strip
• Hubble Deep Field South
• Large Magellanic Cloud
• Small Magellanic Cloud
• Abell 901/902 Supercluster

For other targets, please use the Target Visibility and Orientation tools available on the HST Two Gyro Science Mode page.

Using APT for a Large/Treasury Program Proposal

For all Large (>100 orbits) and Treasury programs (excluding those with Solar System and generic targets), we ask proposers to include additional technical detail on the scheduling aspects of their program. This information is useful to both proposers (so they can devise observations that can be successfully scheduled) and to STScI (so we can identify and resolve conflicts early, thus allowing for data to be obtained as quickly as possible).

• Roadmap #12 - Determine the target visibility of your observations
  In order to maximize the schedulability of Large and Treasury programs, we request proposers to use the Orbit Visibility table below, rather than that in the HST Primer (Table 6.1). Note that the values in this table are shorter (by 1-4 minutes) than those in the Primer (which represent more typical schedulabilities). During implementation in Phase II, we will work with those approved PIs to provide the maximum visibility possible consistent with an efficient schedule.

The target visibility plot will show you the nominal visibility as a function of date. If you need to use a longer visibility period than listed above, please justify the need for the longer time, and use the reduced total schedulability when determining the schedulability statistics requested below.

• Roadmap #4 - Complete template for PDF attachment
  Include a text description of the schedulability of your observations in the Observation Description of your PDF attachment. This description should include:
• number and duration of the schedulability windows
• scheduling constraints (e.g. ORIENTs), including flexibility (e.g. ORIENT ranges)
• number of orbits per day = total request/available days
• value and justification of target visibility used (if different from the table above)
• Roadmap #17 - Fill in the Proposal Information
  In APT, select Large Program on the Proposal Information page (just above "Proposal PDF Attachment").
• For Large and Treasury programs, we will be contacting each proposer within 1-2 weeks of the submission deadline to verify our understanding of the appropriate scheduling constraints. If a Co-Investigator is to serve as the contact for this verification, then the Contact Keyword box should be set accordingly. Only one person may be designated as the Contact.

New Data Processing System Available for Large or Treasury Proposals

STScI plans to make a portion of our data processing system available for use in bulk data reduction and analysis for Large or Treasury proposals. This system has recently been modernized and upgraded to handle the throughput from HST to the archive and from the archive to the users. The system has the flexibility to re-allocate compute resources among various uses. Such a re-allocation was used to create a temporary (~ 8 weeks) partition for bulk processing of the UDF data. This test of the concept was successful, so we are now extending the experiment to include possible bulk processing of data from Large and Treasury programs.

We believe this system would be of most value to programs that require substantial bulk processing of their HST data, and hence are limiting the availability to Large and Treasury programs. From a proposers perspective, use of this system could reduce the cost of computing facilities required for their program. It could also provide for faster bulk processing of data, and potentially avoid the need to develop a computing infrastructure for only a short period. Use of the system will have to be in accordance with applicable security policies, to ensure no compromise to the system and no interruption of service to other users. We envision that the processing capabilities would be provided for a limited period of time (several months), not as a continuous support function.

The new data processing system consists of a Sun Fire 15K and a EMC Symmetrix storage area network. The 15K is a multi-processor system, and we would expect to allocate 4-8 CPUs (each a 1 GHz Ultra III) with 4 GB of memory each to a domain for use by a GO program. We would allocate up to 1.5 TB of total disk space via a 2 Gb/s fibre channel SAN. A GO domain would be expected to be operational around the clock, for bulk processing. Accounts will be given to proposal team members, and the system will be accessible via ssh. NFS mounts of disk volumes either to or from the Sun Fire will not be available. Remote data access is via sFTP only. The system is running Solaris 8 and will be configured with a wide range of standard research software and compilers, similar to the STScI Solaris science net. Packages that are considered security risks will not be available. The system can be configured to process raw data through the standard STScI OTFR processing package. License costs for commercial packages not already available a STScI will be the responsibility of the proposer. Some assistance will be available for custom software installations, configuration changes, or system tuning in support of the proposal. Further technical details can be obtained by getting in touch with help@stsci.edu.

Proposers considering use of this facility are encouraged to indicate that in their Phase I proposals. Plans for specifically using the facility will need to be described as part of the Phase II process, for accepted programs.