¹ Observation setup indicates an independent observation unit. The setup (or block) contains a target name, an instrumental configuration (filter, grism, slit, binning, box), an exposure time, number of exposures, and observational constraints.
² The first control performed by FLEX is on ASCII files: if data are not reported in the required order, FLEX gives a format error and does not control data belonging to the bad-formatted line.
³ The name must be unique, considering also other observation setups already present in SerPICo.
⁴ Spaces separate input data. Using spaces in the setup name causes a format error.
⁵ You may want to link blocks together if you need to observe them during the same night. A typical example is the multi-filter observation of a target. It is possible to link blocks referring to different objects.
⁶ This filter is not currently mounted in LRS. Inform your contact astronomer if you want to use this filter.
⁷ TNG staff does not recommend exposures larger than 60 minutes. FLEX anyway accepts larger values, giving a warning for values larger than 60 minutes.
⁸ There is a subtle difference between these two errors. In the first case FLEX finds an error in the data, in the second the whole line is considered wrong and no value is checked.
⁹ The total time in an observation setup is the product of number of exposures times the exposure time.
¹⁰Flexible scheduling is not compatible with observation setups requiring more than three hours. A warning message will be issued. Please try to split the observation in several blocks.
¹¹ SerPICo takes into account the constraints on the lunar phase only when the moon is above the horizon.
¹² The minimum altitude value for TNG is 20°, corresponding to an airmass close to 3.0.
¹³The info file must be as clear (and short) as possible. You may use the same file to detail the strategy of one, several, or all setups. Your contact astronomer at TNG will help you to write a good info file.
¹⁴ As in the case of finder charts, in the observation setup you have only to write the name of the file or the URL of your web page (no spaces allowed). In case you have written a filename, you will have to submit later the corresponding file (Add button in the Info file menu section).
¹⁵ The time constraint is simply an information shown by SerPICo to the staff observer. It does not interact in any way with the archive. All details on the observing strategy have to be written in the info file. Your contact astronomer will help you in this task.
¹⁶ If you had submitted another file with observation setups, the submission button is already active.
¹⁷ The possibility to hide an observation setup may be useful in case you want to observe an object only during some time windows (e.g. at a certain time after the first observation). An observation setup can be hidden by yourself or deactivated by the contact astronomer. In any case it can always be resumed. Only the administrator can definitively cancel a block.
¹⁸ The modification interface will appear automatically only with recent versions of the browser (Netscape 6 or higher, IE higher than 5.5, Mozilla 1 or higher), with the javascript option active.
¹⁹ SerPICo provides the staff observer with catalogs and observation setups. A modification during an observing night may prevent the system to be correctly updated, or may create conflicts in the archive.
²⁰ That is, performs all the required checks about uniqueness and links to existing blocks.
²¹ Updates are many. FLEX can take a while to execute all the procedure.
²² That is, performs a control on the object catalog, to verify if the target has been correctly inserted.