NOAO queue-observing experiment on the WIYN Telescope

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Abstract
For the last 3 years, most of NOAO's 40 percent observing share on the WIYN 3.5 m telescope has been used for queued observing, with the goal of facilitating highly ranked science proposals that require rare observing conditions and/or synoptic or 'target of opportunity' observations. The ease of switching between imaging on one Nasmyth focus and multi- object fiber fed bench spectroscopy on the other Nasmyth port offers the choice of making the best use of the extant observing conditions. We assess the results of this experiment and highlight some of the forefront observing programs that have been executed. We discuss algorithms that facilitate making decisions on both long and short time scales so that we can provide the best match of program requirements and observing conditions. We suggest a way of quantifying the prioritization of programs beyond simple ranking that will greatly aid decision making, and evolve the procedures to where queued observations better serve the emphases placed by the time allocation process, without compromising the intent of the scientific investigators.

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