REM observatory is placed in the Chilean premises of ESO and therefore must follow the disposition
of all other telescopes offering time for Chilean Institutes.
We can count, apart from weather and other major events out of our control, on an average of 8 hours per night,
summing an a budget of about 1400 hours per semester.
The REM Team keeps at its own disposal 20% of the time, divided in Technical Time (10%) and
Director Discretionary Time (REM-DDT). A total of 1120 hours are for Programme Observing Time (about 43 per week).
Chilean Institution are entitled to ask up to 10% of this time. The REM Team
undertakes to support the Chilean community who shall contact the Team directly.
The contact for this purpouses is the REM Direction (director@rem.inaf.it).
The Chilean Observing Programs shall be compatible with the technical operation of the telescope as agreed
between ESO and the REM Team.
In the 1008 hours left the REM Team and INAF agreed on allocating an amount of guaranteed time (REM-GT).
In such REM-GT the GRB prompt follow upprogram is included for an indefinite time. The time needed to carry out the
GRB program is estimated on the basis of past period and will have a 10% of the time (or some 100 hours/semester, 4 hours/week).
As a smooth transition from PI Instrument to offered instrument, INAF and the REM Team agreed on allocating
for the first semester (AOT15) an extra 10% of the time for ongoing observation and collaborations previously
agreed with REM Team.
Targets included in REM-GT programmes have a higher priority over TAC allocated programmes while REM-DDT
observation have lower priority. Programmes listed in the REM-GT will be postes as soon as possible in the submitted
proposal database and web page.
REM is always in robotic observing mode. Observing time offered to users is 80% of the
real useful time, after allocating time for Chilean institutes that have the right to ask.
Targets are allocated by the REM observing software in Chile and are observed
under the best conditions.
The prompt GRB follow up program is Guaranteed Time and is allocated by default by REM Observatory.
Be warned that a GRB alert by high energy satellite will interrupt immediately any ongoing observation and
the programmed GRB sequence executed. The interrupted observing block will be restarted in the next favourable
moment and duly completed.
RRO and RTOO will override the programmed schedule and observe immediately the new targets.
More precisely RRO will act as the GRB alert program while RTOO will begin immediately after completion of ongoing observation.
Please take note thet RRO mode shall be agreed with the REM Team in advance. So if you intend
to use RRO please contact us well in advance. Do not wait for the AOT. It would be too late.
But probably the RTOO mode is well suited for most of the immediate response observations which you may need.
Observing blocks (OBs) will be prepared by REM Team and proposed to successful applicants.
The INAF-TAC will accept proposals for scientific programs that extend beyond a single semester. Long-term status may be granted to a proposal for which the principal science goal cannot be achieved without the full allocation of time. An investigator who wishes to request long-term status should include a justification for the total time requested in the appropriate proposal section. He/she should also indicate if, in case long-term status is not granted, he/she will accept to carry on the project with a normal status.
If long-term status is granted, a progress report must be submitted each subsequent semester to inform the TAC that appropriate progress is being made. Progress reports should provide a detailed report of progress to date, and give details needed for scheduling the proposal in the next semester.
Although the granting of long-term status by the TAC does carry with it a commitment for observing time in future semesters, the INAF-TAC reserves the right to terminate long-term status on the advice of the TAC if insufficient information concerning the progress of the project has been supplied.
The focal plane instruments ROS2, REMIR can be normally used at the same time.
The minimum exposure time for REMIR is 0.8 sec. Normally the standard REMIR observation unit is
composed of 5 shifted images (about 20 pixels or 25 arcsec) in order to be able to
subtract the proper sky. For extened object this is not correct and users should foresee
to obtain sky images too.
For this reason the REMIR integration time is usually 5*DIT, thus with a minimum of 4.0 sec.
In any case, should the user be interested, the single images are of course
available and a higher time resolution can be achieved.
No particular restriction for the visible camera are present.
Overheads should be included in the justification of the requested time. These can be estimated as follows:
In the frame of the collaboration between REM Team and Russian SAO the TORTORA parallel instrument
is permanently mounted on REM telescope.
Special programmes using this camera can in principle taken into consideration. INAF-TAC will
not take part in this process and you may contact the REM Team or SAO directly.
Please note that this instrument is mainly reserved for GRB prompt detection.
Proposals will be allocated observing time based on scientific merit only and applications from non Italian applicants are welcome. In any case collaboration with Italian groups is strongly encouraged.
Proposals requiring special observing procedures are considered as challenging for REM Observatory. But please consider this as special as RRO observing mode and you should inquiry with the REM Team about its feasibility.
Data will be released in FITS format together with a quick astrometry and photomety of the field, for whose accuracy the REM Team does not take any responsability. The quick analysis is given as is and with no warranty or accuracy. The data will be made available to PI of successful proposals in an Italy based database. Huge amount of data resulting from particular programs will not be transferred immediately to the REM database and will be sent via physical support in due time from Chile to Italy. Such programs will be warned of such possibility.
Please remember that any publication based on REM data should be suitably acknowledged with a note like "Based on observations made with the REM Telescope, INAF Chile" A complete reference of, and a link to the paper should be communicated to the REM Team
REM status and operations can be followed by PI (and general public) via the web based telemetry sustem tREMometer. It is located at URLS www.rem.inaf.it (follow tREMometer link on the left) and also in www.ls.eso.org/lasilla/rem for convenience. In addition to REM health and working status it is there possible to check the list of last observation and have a look to a small quickviev of the images obtained by clicking on the observation graph (OBS) in the remEYE plot.