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The Pool Observation Database System (ODS) at the IRAM 30m Telescope

Pool Observations

Most cutting edge scientific programs carried out at the IRAM observatories require excellent weather conditions. While the service observing mode at the Plateau de Bure interferometer allows a flexible scheduling of demanding programs, fixed scheduled projects at the 30m telescope often suffer from limitations due to inadequate weather conditions.

To optimize the observing efficiency given the often quickly changing weather conditions, IRAM offers the pool observing mode at the 30m telescope. In this mode all bolometer and some high demanding spectroscopy programs share the allocated observing time together with some less weather demanding spectroscopy programs.

Projects are observed according to the current weather conditions, their ranking from the program committee and the source visibility. This way the chance of all demanding projects have drastically improved: the average success rate of A ranked projects requiring good or excellent weather conditions in last winter pool was 80%, compared to 20% of good weather conditions during the allocated pool observing time (see Fig below).

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The pool observations are conducted mostly by the astronomers who's programs are included in the pool. They are aided by the IRAM astronomers and telescope operators. There are typically three guest astronomers, one IRAM astronomer, and the telescope operators at the telescope. Given the flexible use of different instruments and the large variety of scientific programs, pooled observations are part of IRAM's training efforts for students.

Pool observations were first tested at the IRAM 30m telescope during the winter 2000/2001, and have now expanded to 12 weeks in the winter semester, and about 4 weeks in the summer. The winter 2003/4 pool includes almost 50 different programs with more than 500 different targets. To manage such a pool requires an efficient organizational structure, so that at any time the status of a program, target priorities and weather/technical requirements can be assessed. This motivated the observational database system described here.

The PHP/MySQL software (http://mrt-lx2.iram.es/pooldatabase/index.php) system was first conceived by Alexandre Beelen (IAS Paris) and Frank Bertoldi (MPIfR Bonn) in December 2001, and subsequently being developed by Axel Weiss. Stephane Leon, as an IRAM astronomer serves as the pool coordinator at the 30m telescope and is maintaining and developping the Pool Database System. All data reduction tools have been developed and are maintained by Robert Zylka (IRAM).

To Be Updated.