PST Sessions (GBT): Meeting Minutes (09 December 2016)

Attending: DanaBalser, RichardPrestage, DavidFrayer, RyanLynch, DanPerera, ToneyMinter, KarenONeil

We discussed the PST requirements document to remove Sessions from the PST. Here we mostly focused on the GBT. Some specific items that were discussed.

  • Technical Reviews: There was some concern that technical reviews would be affected since the detailed Session information would not be available. For example, the overhead time is a function of the Session length. In the new scheme, without Sessions, there will have to be some guidelines as to the typical Session length and overhead for different types of observing. All information necessary to perform the technical review should be in the Technical Justification page. We briefly discussed whether some of this information (e.g., time, overhead) could not be calculated; that is, the proposer would only need to specify the rms required. We could eventually go down this path (e.g., ALMA), but not at this stage. If so, however, the user should be able to override these values (e.g., they have measured the overhead based on past experience).
  • Non-standard Observing: There are some types of observing (e.g., pulsar monitoring) with observing constraints. This may be important when generating DSS pressure plots for the review process. Currently some of these constraints are captured by PST Sessions; others are input manually based on text in a textbox. In the new scheme there are several parameters that will capture simple observing constraints (e.g., regular monitoring); others will have to be captured in a textbox.
  • Mapping: There was some concern that the correct time would not be captured for mapping projects where there is the time per beam (based on the sensitivity calculator) and the time per map (based on the mapping planner). We need to make it clear that for mapping the user must specify the time per map; that is, the source is really a field.
  • Accuracy of Generated Sessions: Because of limited resources there is not much effort to change software downstream of the PST. So we plan to generate Sessions in the new scheme. This will not be visible to the proposer but exist in the database with the same format as before. One concern is the accuracy of the generated Sessions. We need to test this carefully. In particular, we could generate Sessions for some of the Use Cases and compare them to the old Sessions.
  • Plans: Currently RafaelHiriart is developing a prototype. Once complete we will perform some internal testing for the different telescopes. DanaBalser will coordinate testing with GBO support scientist. If the prototype contains Sessions generation, we will test these with the GBT Use Cases as described above with the DSS. (If not we will have to test this at some point in the process.) Once internal testing is complete DanaBalser will coordinate testing with external folks; specifically with members of the User's Committee.

-- DanaBalser - 2016-12-09

This topic: Software > TelescopeTimeAllocation > TTAPSTMinutes09Dec2016
Topic revision: 2016-12-09, DanaBalser
This site is powered by FoswikiCopyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
Ideas, requests, problems regarding NRAO Public Wiki? Send feedback