Observing with HARPS: which TARGETS ?

Observing with HARPS: which way ?

Visitor Mode (VM)

The HARPS Observation Software is fully VLT-compliant. Observations are therefore performed using Observation Blocks which are prepared with P2PP and fetched by BOB.

In VM, the observer has also direct access to the results of the online pipeline, developed by the HARPS Consortium and installed at La Silla. He/she can immediately inspect the results of the processing and use them for further analysis on the data reduction workstation available in the control room.

Service Mode (SM)

SM should be especially suitable for monitoring programmes which require a small number of observations extending over longer periods of time so that VM would be uneconomic in terms of travel cost and time. Note however that HARPS shares the 3.6m telescope with other instruments; this introduces certain boundary conditions which reduce the availability and may make e.g. equidistantly spaced observations impossible.

During visitor mode as well as service mode observations, the pipeline will process the data produced by HARPS.

Access to the data

• The visitor mode Users can ask their data to be backed up on DVDs supplied by the observatory, or on USB disks of their own.
• The service mode Users will receive the full data package in DVDs once the service program is completed.
• All Users have access to the HARPS data archive.