The User Support Department Fernando Comerón DMD/USD

The User Support Department: what we do… USD mission is to support Service Mode users of the ESO End-to-End System through Phase 2 preparation. Assistance in the preparation of observing proposals and Phase 2 packages Providing documentation and making tools available to users Participation in the definition of tool requirements Review and validation of Phase 2 material to optimize the use of telescope time Preparation of medium-term schedule and reports to the mountain Interfacing between observatory and users on run execution problems On-site assistance to Service Mode operations Observing run tracking Observing run progress information to users Helpdesk system to users for any questions related to service mode

…and who we are Department head: User Support Astronomers: Fernando Comerón User Support Astronomers: Sabine Mengel Palle Møller Ferdinando Patat Monika Petr-Gotzens Francesca Primas Marina Rejkuba Martino Romaniello Lowell Tacconi-Garman Mario van den Ancker Markus Wittkowski Magda Arnaboldi (as of 1st Sept.) Support astronomer for the 2.2m: Alexei Kniazev Operations Support Scientists Stephane Marteau Petra Nass

USD in numbers, 2005 SM continues to be the most popular mode at the VLT: time requested SM/VM = 1.9 in P75 (in number of runs, SM/VM = 3.0) 10 support astronomers (11 as of 1st March, 12 as of 1st September) 12 instruments supported in SM (13 as of P76) 360 runs supported in P75 (1st April-30 September) (+ ~40 DDTs/MPI reserved) 3078 OBs submitted in P75 (+ MOS, DDT, MPI still to come) 206 different PIs in P75, including 72 new PIs 275 USD Problem Reporting System (“usd-help@eso.org”) handled per month (average; peaks at Phase 2, 264 tickets received in the two weeks before deadline). 4 partly overlapping maternity/paternity leaves between November and now (extra workload on backup support astronomers well handled thanks to excellent team spirit!)

P2PP: latest improvements (thanks, DFS!!) (From last year’s EWR:) P2PP is now More user-friendly More powerful in capabilities More helpful in preventing mistakes by providing high level verification Almost no instrument-specific Easier to maintain P2PP is from P75 on the only tool that users need to submit the Phase 2 package Phase 2 submission procedures are now the same for La Silla and Paranal

Improving the reliability in operations Complementing the new capabilities in the Observation Handling System tools, improvements in the Medium-Term Schedule report, internal documentation effort has led to increased operational robustness

Other 2004/2005 highlights USD support to MIDI operations from P73 SINFONI operations from P75 VISIR operations from P75 Bringing these instruments to regular operations has greatly benefited from lessons learned!

Outlook 2005/2006 Operations of AMBER VLTI operations with ATs Preparing for surveys (VST, VISTA): setting up operations scenario and tool requirements