Telescope Efficiencies Changed
We have changed some telescope efficiencies recently to reflect the actual data extracted from images. Normally, the efficiencies are updated automatically, and these updates are smooth and do not significantly change the values once they are well established. However, we haven't yet accumulated enough data points to let this process run automatically for several telescopes for which the initial guess for the efficiency was clearly off. For these telescopes, we had to do this one-time update.
As a result, all new observations submitted to these telescopes will cost you more than before -- sometimes, significantly more, except for PROMPT-USASK. Moreover, if you have a long-running observation on multiple telescopes and/or choose exposure length for the Generic 16-inch w/back-illuminated CCD instead of choosing it for a specific telescope, exposure lengths will be scaled according to the new efficiency when dispatching the exposure, so they might be different than before for the same telescope. If you have such long-running observations, we suggest you to cancel and resubmit them to make sure that all exposure lengths are as you expect.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Once again, this is a one-time change; future updates will not change these values significantly unless something serious happens, like replacing the camera.
Below is the list of affected telescopes; by definition, PROMPT5 = Generic 16" has the efficiency of 1.
Telescope | Old Efficiency | New Efficiency |
---|---|---|
AURT | 0.12 | 0.44 |
DSO-14 | 0.22 | 0.38 |
DSO-17 | 0.13 | 0.59 |
PROMPT1 | 1.85 | 3.39 |
PROMPT2 | 0.27 | 0.32 |
PROMPT3 | 1.61 | 2.11 |
PROMPT7 | 0.66 | 1.44 |
PROMPT8 | 2.09 | 2.29 |
PROMPT-MO-1 | 0.82 | 1.12 |
PROMPT-USASK | 1.00 | 0.44 |
R-COP | 0.25 | 0.36 |
RRRT | 0.20 | 1.14 |
Yerkes-41 | 0.71 | 1.91 |