<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by letiole:
If you read your contract, I think you'll find that they all state astronomers connected with an institution doing bona fide work at the observatories are permitted to take the rental vehicles to the summit. </font>
Well this is good to know. I've never read the fine print regarding this.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Fascinating article in Outside perhaps a couple of years ago about the tremendous wait to get a slot at an observatory to collect your data; and if the weather stinks (which it usually doesn't) you just have to back to the multi-year wait to get up there again.
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Observatories generally have semi-annual proposal reviews, when they read all science projects submitted and requesting time on the ir telescope. For most large observatories, there is an index called the "oversubscription factor" which calculates how much time was requested by all the proposers, versus how much time is actually available on the telescope. At large observatories like the ones on Mauna Kea, the factor is something like 2 to 5. For the Hubble space telescope, it is more like 7.
And yes, if weather takes a dump on us, we just have to propose again and wish the best. But weather on the mountain is very good usually.