Focus On: Time Allocation
  David Silva, TMT Observatory Scientist

The Universe is a big place with lots of exciting neighborhoods. For every night at the TMT, there will be 5 or more teams who want to explore those neighborhoods. Deciding which teams get to use TMT is called time allocation and scheduling.

For TMT, we expect this process to begin within each of the partner communities. The amount of time available to each partner will be roughly proportional to their financial contribution to the TMT construction and operations budgets. Each community is likely to have different scientific priorities and models for scientific exploration. It is possible that one partner may wish to allocate all their time to one big project, spanning tens or hundreds of nights. Such a large project may involve the participation of tens of astronomers. A different partner may decide to award one night each to many different projects. Each project may involve a few astronomers or many astronomers. Given these differences, each partner is likely to have a slightly different process to request, received, and collect observing proposals – descriptions of science ideas and desired observations.

After reviewing all proposals, each partner will forward a list of approved projects to TMT for scheduling – a process of matching each project to an exact set of nights. On TV, this process would be completed instantly by a super-sophisticated computer program. In reality, we expect a knowledgeable staff member will lock herself in a room for a few days and then emerge with a schedule. The biggest challenge will be resolving conflicts between projects that want to observe on the same nights (or even the same objects). Often such conflicts can be resolved by shifting projects by a few nights. Sometimes detailed negotiations within or across partner communities are needed. Time must also be scheduled for unavoidable night time technical work – usually required to test and tune observatory performance but also needed to add new and exciting instruments.

In the end, each astronomer who submitted a proposal will receive an e-mail with good or bad news. In the latter case, bad news is accompanied by a brief description of why the proposal was not allocated time and suggestions for improving future proposals. On the other hand, astronomers with successful proposals begin preparing for their nights on TMT – the subject of a future newscast article.