N6 OPTICON Telescope Network

1. N6 OPTICON Telescope Network • WP1 Telescope Directors Forum • WP2 Transnational Access Office • WP3 Enhancing Research

2. WP1 Director’s Forum • The TDF is an expansion of the successful FP5 medium telescope working group • It includes telescope directors from all 2m+ European telescopes with state of the art instrumentation. • It meets at least annually at different observatory locations.

3. WP1 Director’s Forum • Provides a forum for European strategic planning. • Provides oversight of the OPTICON Trans-national Access programme. • Creates new opportunities for local collaborations

4. WP1 Achievements • Survey of European telescopes and instrumentation plans • Monitoring and adjustment of access programme. • Review of WP2 (Access office) • Peer Review process set up for entry of Aristarchos and Liverpool telescope.

5. WP1 Achievements • Visits to Rohzen, Wroclaw, Vienna, Prague, JENAM’s etc to promote access programme • Opportunities for time swaps and closer collaboration in the future being identified.

6. WP1 Achievements • Northstar proposal system being expanded for Optical telescopes in conjunction with Radionet, increasing synergy across Europe and across the wavelength divide.

7. FP7 Plans • Telescope directors are working on a new, more radical, access programme with more flexibility than existing contract and more emphasis on rationalisation of facilities. • Common proposal tool development to continue as a first step towards closer integration. • Possible vehicle for other telescope wide initiatives such as common TACs, e-star remote scheduling tool

8. E-Star Objectives • Simple access to distributed and heterogeneous observing facilities • Making efficient use of OPTICON observing facilities • Enabling rapid reaction to events • Enabling rapid dissemination of time critical results

9. Partners • EU • MONET, Germany • EUDOXOS, Greece • ING, La Palma • JAC, Hawaii • Liverpool JMU, UK • Companies • Tuparev Technologies, Bulgaria • Thales • Google • LCO-GT • U.S.A. • LANL • NOAO • Caltech

10. Deliverables • Software • Interfaces for telescopes systems • OPTICON portal for requesting observations • Transient event software (publish & subscription) • Agent software (already funded) • Operations • Transient event feeds • User support • Archiving for event messages

11. Costs & Matched Funding • Costs • 3 yr PDRA effort • appropriate levels of hardware and travel support • Matched Funding • 1 yr PDRA effort from 1/1/09 from STFC

12. Current operations • JACH • GRB follow-up programme on UKIRT • Common user facility available to community • Robonet-1.0 • Hunting for exo-planets • ESSENSE follow-up (LSST pre-cursor project) • RAPTOR & LT • OT follow-up programme • HTN Consortium • Standardisation work • VO integration work • VOEvent network • Simple Time Access Protocol (STAP) services • Public Outreach • Google Sky

13. WP2. Access Office (IAC) General tasks • Management the OPTICON Access Programme • To produce budgetary estimates for User Fees, user travel and subsistence grants, operating costs and promotional material. • Management of funds for the payment of travel and subsistence grants for the Trans-national Access programme. • Maintain the website for the Access Programme • Other activities to guarantee the most valuable implementation of the Access Programme: • Impact and evolution of the programme, proposal submission systems, information and publicity of the Access Programme, etc.

14. Specific tasks: Telescope Operators and Executive Committee • Provide to the Executive Committee financial reports and reconciliations for the funds advanced for the Access Programme. • Prepare reports for the Executive Committee and the Telescope Directors’ Forum. • Assess the qualifying telescope time awarded and the consequent User Fees due to the telescopes • Provide the administrative and technical support for the implementation of the Access Programme to the telescope operators. • Monitor the implementation of the Access Programme by the individual telescope operators, • Collect and provide to the Telescope Directors’ Forum detailed statistics about type and characteristics of observing runs supported under the Access Programme

15. Specific tasks: Users • Provide information to those eligible teams awarded observing time about this EC funding opportunity • Receive, assess and adjudicate requests for travel and subsistence • Maintain an auditable paper trail for the travel and subsistence payments made and the calculation of the user fees. • Collection of scientific output, feedbacks and user questionnaires

16. Activities • General publicity: participation in conferences, info days, meetings • Announcements of opportunity • OPTICON Access Website • Handouts

17. 82 users questionnaires fulfilled (2004- 2006) Evaluation of service provided

18. Deliverables & Milestones • M1. Definition of the Access Office Work Scope • M2 Annual reports to the Directors Forum • Internal 18-months Review Report • Progress reports to the Directors Forum • Promote Access programme at IAU meeting in Prague • Promote Access programme at JENAM2004 and JENAM2005 • Analysis of procedures for awarding time Planned Achieved 2004 Yes Yes Yearly 2005 Each four-month period 2006 2004, 2005 2005

19. Plans for the future • Promotion of the Access Programme. • New promotional material • Main international events • Special promotion to Central and Eastern Europe • Massive sending of a general advertisement of the Programme • Scientific output. • New section in the Access Website • New actions to boost observers’ feedback • Compilation of publications, conferences proceedings, etc in a report • Minor improvements on management procedures. • Survey to evaluate the OPTICON Access Programme website. • New studies to analyse the impact of the access programme.