Expected observing efficiency of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE)

Flagey, Nicolas; Szeto, Kei; Ho, Kevin; Mahoney, Billy; McConnachie, Alan W.; Hill, Alexis; Hervieu, Calum

doi:10.1117/12.2312698

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Details can be found in Ref. 25. Thus, even with calibration exposures occuring before and after each science exposure, we still expect to meet the (demanding) observing efficiency requirement.…”

Section: Night-time Observing Sequencementioning

confidence: 99%

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The science calibration challenges of next generation highly multiplexed optical spectroscopy: the case of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer

McConnachie¹,

Flagey²,

Hall

et al. 2018

Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VII

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MSE is an 11.25m telescope with a 1.5 sq.deg. field of view. It can simultaneously obtain 3249 spectra at R = 3000 from 360−1800nm, and 1083 spectra at R = 40000 in the optical. The large field of view, large number of targets, as well as the use of more than 4000 optical fibres to transport the light from the focal plane to the spectrographs, means that precise and accurate science calibration is difficult but essential to obtaining the science goals. As a large aperture telescope focusing on the faint Universe, precision sky subtraction and spectrophotometry are especially important. Here, we discuss the science calibration requirements, and the adopted calibration strategy, including operational features and hardware, that will enable the successful scientific exploitation of the vast MSE dataset.

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Section: Night-time Observing Sequencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…We refer the reader to Ref. 25 for a detailed discussion of observing efficiency in the context of MSE.…”

Section: Observing Efficiency Requirement and Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The science calibration challenges of next generation highly multiplexed optical spectroscopy: the case of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer

McConnachie¹,

Flagey²,

Hall

et al. 2018

Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VII

Self Cite

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“…More details about weather losses and observing efficiency are provided in Ref. 26. There will be weather sensors measuring wind speed, humidity, temperature, dust particles, and others, installed at various places inside and outside the observatory, and the measurements will be monitored in real time from the remote observing room.…”

Section: Weather Conditions and Status Servermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the nominal nighttime sequence shown earlier in this paper (see Figure 7), given information received through Conceptual Design Phase on the numerous subsystems in MSE, and given historical data on various technical losses, we established a budget for the observing efficiency, which is described in Ref. 26. In summary, MSE will reach an observing efficiency of 80% if the allocations in the budget are all met and if the average duration of a science block of observations is at least 44 minutes.…”

Section: Observing Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimal scheduling and science delivery of spectra for millions of targets in thousands of fields: the operational concept of the Maunakea spectroscopic explorer (MSE)

Flagey

McConnachie

Szeto

et al. 2018

Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VII

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The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will each year obtain millions of spectra in the optical to nearinfrared, at low (R 3000) to high (R 40000) spectral resolution by observing >3000 spectra per pointing via a highly multiplexed fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE include black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis of faint galaxies at high redshift, and sub-km/s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics.The architecture of MSE is an assembly of subsystems designed to meet the science requirements and describes what MSE will look like. In this paper we focus on the operations concept of MSE, which describes how to operate a fiber fed, highly multiplexed, dedicated observatory given its architecture and the science requirements.The operations concept details the phases of operations, from selecting proposals within the science community to distributing back millions of spectra to this community. For each phase, the operations concept describes the tools required to support the science community in their analyses and the operations staff in their work. It also highlights the specific needs related to the complexity of MSE with millions of targets to observe, thousands of fibers to position, and different spectral resolution to use. Finally, the operations concept shows how the science requirements on calibration and observing efficiency can be met. is presented this year in Ref. 4 with a review of the instrumentation suite in Ref. 5. Other papers related to MSE are focusing on: the summit facility upgrade (Ref. 6, 7), the telescope optical design for MSE (Ref. 8), the telescope structure design (Ref. 9), the design for the high-resolution (Ref. 10, 11) and the low/moderateresolution spectrograph (Ref. 12), the top end assembly (Ref. 13, 14), the fiber bundle system (Ref. 15, 16), the Sphinx fiber positioner system (Ref. 17), the systems budgets architecture and development (Ref. 18, 19), the observatory software (Ref. 20), the spectral calibration (Ref. 21, 22), the throughput optimization (Ref. 23, 24), the injection efficiency (Ref. 25), and the observing efficiency (Ref. 26).MSE will be a facility dedicated to spectroscopic surveys. Multiple surveys will be executed in parallel to make the best use of the observatory capabilities, with both LMR and HR spectrographs simultaneously available at all time and sharing the telescope's field of view. While the surveys are envisioned to be multi-year large programs (LP), we expect that some observing time might be allocated to small programs (SP) that will likely be more focused, require smaller amounts of telescope time or number of fibers, and typically lead to more rapid publications. Even though MSE will be a significantly different facility than CFHT, the operations of MSE will benefit from CFHT's experience in queue service observations and from the transition that has already happened at CFHT with an increased importance of LPs and survey oriented operations.In this paper we focus on the operations concept of MSE: how MSE will ...

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