2020 Observing schedule (May update) [Télescope Solaire THEMIS ]

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==== 2020 Observing schedule (May update)====


Following our 2020 call for observing time, a schedule was ready by the beginning of march with observing runs starting in june and until the end of the year. This agenda is now obsolete because prior to the observing campaign, mandatory technical actions and commissionings were due to take place in march/april/may, that it has not been possible to fulfill so far:

   *  The installation and verification of a new derotator system. Our old derotator, plagued by a terrible Mueller matrix, was removed in 2016. Observers in 2019 did notice that the field of view was affected by rotation in the absence of a compensating device. We are now ready to replace it by a new one, much more "polarization friendly".This device is ready at the maker's premises in Paris (photo) and has been checked successfully to our specs (optical and geometrical, polarization specs have not been tested yet). The shipping to Tenerife and installation by the provider, due early march, is obviously pending to the permission to travel again from France to Spain and back.  
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   * The last round of qualification and beginning of the commissioning of our adaptive optics software was due to take place in march/april and is also pending to the travel permission in general but also at institute level: CNRS has been disallowing our travels for an indefinite duration: this may (will...) change but we have no idea on when yet.


Weighting the importance of the above actions, it is clear to me that these were supposed be finished prior to the 2020 campaign and must still take place **before** the campaign, and that this order of priorities cannot be changed. The telescope is presently not in observing conditions and must reach this status before any campaign. The obvious consequence shall be a shifting of all runs toward the end of the year 2020. Any further scheduling now relies on travelling permissions and I shall be coming back to you as soon as we have a reasonable visibility on this topic.  

 --- //[[bgelly@themis.iac.es|Bernard Gelly]] 2020/05/07 10:15//