* Special Note Concerning Allocated Telescope Time
For 2012-17,
the Steward Observatory Telescope Assignment Committee has typically
allocated 9 or 10 contiguous nights per month for science
programs that utilize the SPOL instrument.
Seven nights per month have been allocated for the
Fermi/Steward Observatory Blazar monitoring program. However, to
maximize operational efficiency and extend the
temporal coverage of the blazar monitoring program, observations
for other programs utilizing SPOL are intermixed during the
campaigns. On average, blazar monitoring will occupy 7/9
of the time during each campaign that is suitable for observations.
In this way, all science programs will be better insulated from
periods of bad weather and SPOL does not need to be installed and
removed from a telescope multiple times during a month.