Current status of science operation at Subaru

Abstract

Subaru Telescope has been in operation for open use for six years. As the first-generation instruments became all operational and as minimal engineering time has been spent for the commissioning of the second-generation instrument, science time counts over 80% of the total telescope time since 2002. Downtime is almost minimized thanks to the stability of the telescope and the instruments and to the dedication of the support staff. Due to overwhelming deficiency in national budget of Japan, Subaru Telescope faces more serious budget cut than expected. This paper presents how the observatory is/will be dealing with the reduced budget with minimum impact to the operation that may pose observers any restriction to use the telescope.

Current and future Subaru instruments

“…The details of the telescope system and its current performance can be found in recent review papers. [1][2][3][4] The first generation scientific instruments consists of 1) SUbaru PRIME-focus CAMera (Suprime-Cam), 2) InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (IRCS), 3) Faint Object Camera And Spectrograph (FOCAS), 4) OH airglow Suppression spectrograph (OHS) and its camera module (CISCO), 5) High Dispersion Spectrograph (HDS), 6) Cassegrain 36-element Adaptive Optics (AO), 7) COoled Mid Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (COMICS), and 8) Coronagraphic Imager with Adaptive Optics (CIAO). All of these instruments got their first light by the end of 2000.…”