involved before you start. When you submit the form, some checks are done to try to ensure that you've provided all the necessary information; if so, the form is accepted, you will be immediately allocated a proposal number, your project is added to our observing database and you get sent a confirmation Email. An example section of the form is shown opposite, demonstrating how you specify targets, instrument configurations and observing parameters.

As a clarification and reminder, none of the policies of the service programhave changed - although your observations are in the database, they're marked as unrefereed and the text from the form is sent off to our panel of referees for comment and grading as

before. When we get comments and grades back from our referees, we send these to you along with the grade your project is allocated. You're welcome to respond to the referees comments if you feel hard done by or misunderstood.

After that, it's largely a case of sitting back and waiting for your data. We really do appreciate it if you let us know if your proposed observations become obsolete, either be ause you've acquired the data elsewhere or because developments in the the field have advanced etc.

It's difficult to say how long it will take for your project to get observed. Often it's the case that the weather on a given service night simply wasn't suitable for your project - in the form, we now

ask you to specify the minimum weather requirements for each observation, with the hope that we can schedule our service nights to take advantage of the available conditions without spending time taking data and later finding that for example the seeing wasn't good enough and the data are useless. With that in mind, don't ask for 0.3 arcsec seeing unless you really need it or you'll have to wait a while for your data, on the other hand, don't risk your data being useless by understating your science-driven requirements!
Wondering what's happening with your project? Well, run along to the web pages, and look up your project status. We show you the percentage of your project that's been observed - see the example screenshot to the left. If the number isn't increasing as fast as you hoped it would, best read through the latest few observers reports and find out what's been happening at the telescope on recent service nights. Observers usually comment on the weather and any time lost on the night, which should give you a clue. There's also a service schedule on the web which tells you when service nights are coming up and when the application deadline to get observations into the database and refereed in time for a each service night is.