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Fixed Date and Dynamic Scheduling

Most of the observing time on the VLA is allocated as ``fixed-time'' observing, with the observer being given a particular sidereal date and time allocation on the VLA. However, the VLA gradually is moving toward a system in which more observations are scheduled dynamically, based on a combination of scientific priority and the expected properties of the array and the weather. In particular, all time during antenna moves and all ``filler'' time are scheduled dynamically. The procedure for generating observing scripts is similar to that described in Section 4.4, except that the individual scans must be specified in time durations rather than by the absolute stop time. After preparation, observe files for dynamic scheduling are e-mailed to dynsoc@nrao.edu for queueing. Since the details of dynamic scheduling are changing on a more frequent basis than this document, we refer the reader to the scheduling officers' home page for further information; this page is located at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/$\sim$schedsoc/ .


next up previous contents
Next: The Observations and Remote Up: USING THE VLA Previous: Observing File Preparation   Contents
Jim Ulvestad 2007-04-09