HET Data Rejection Policy
Not all observations go as well as planned and a PI may receive data of
unsatisfactory quality. Often the contact person will have information about
this in the e-mail they received from the night operations staff, which
is the first place to look. The second place to look is in your Program tab on Hydra,
which contains information based upon the RA night reports. There you can see whether any
observation is rejected and uncharged, or accepted and charged. If you
discover that you have received a spectrum of unsatisfactory quality,
you may request to have that spectrum rejected.
To investigate any strangeness in your spectra (low S/N, unusual spectral
type, etc.) try the following:
- Look at the header of the fits files and your copy of the submitted
Phase II information
to make sure that the correct configuration was actually used
- Look at the
RA Night Reports for
the night in question and determine if the observing conditions (image
quality, sky brightness and sky transparency) were within the bounds
that were requested
- For HPF, look at the S/N in comparison to other targets in your program
- Look at the XStart and YStart in the fits header to see if your target
was observed far from the center of the track (the center of the track
is X=0 Y=0). NOTE: observing away from the center of the track can reduce the
flux by a factor of 2 but is not a reason for rejection of an observation
- For the LRS2 or HPF look at the saved ACQ camera image (in acm/ as described here) to
confirm that the correct target was observed
It is important that you document clearly why the data fail to meet
your expectation. Please include the following information:
- UT date of observation
- Program number
- Fits file name
- Relevant comments made by the RA in the night report or email notification
- Specific reason(s) you believe the spectrum was unsatisfactory
The first level of petition is to e-mail the
Resident Astronomers
at astronomer@het.as.utexas.edu.
You will be opening a dialog with them about the observations in question.
An RA will review your petition and respond. The RA may not agree with your
points or may have further questions about your science objectives or data reduction. Please do not take offense; this is a dialog not a power struggle.
If the RA agrees to reject the observation, the
night report will be corrected, and the appropriate number
of visits will be subtracted, thus returning
those visits to the queue. The PI should
check that all of the corrections have been made by looking at your program's tab in Hydra.
In the unlikely event that the RA does not concur with the rejection,
and the PI does not agree with the RA's reasoning, then the PI should contact
his institution's representative to the HET User Committee, which will
review the situation and arbitrate.
Last updated: Thu, 15 Oct 2020 05:37:26 +0000 stevenj
