Revision History

• Version 6.0: November, 2006. Existing chapters revised to reflect new releases of Spot (S15) and Leopard software, Reserved Observations, instrument sensitivities, and Cycle-4 Call for Proposals. New chapter added, describing ``Common Observation Planning Errors''.

• Version 5.0: November, 2005. New chapters 12 and 13 added, outlining how to prepare Time Series and Target of Opportunity (TOO) observations. Existing chapters revised to reflect new releases of Spot and Leopard software, Reserved Observations, instrument sensitivities, and Cycle-3 Call for Proposals.

• Version 4.0: December 13, 2004. New chapters 7, 11, and 12 added, describing the new IRS Peak-Up Imaging (PUI) AOT, the relatively new MIPS Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) AOT, and the proposal submission process, respectively. Existing chapters revised to reflect new releases of Spot and Leopard software, instrument sensitivities, Reserved Observations, Cycle-2 Call for Proposals, and general ``lessons learned'' to date.

• Version 3.0: January 26, 2004. Updated all chapters with post-launch information from IOC/SV. Was targeted with a December 30, 2003 release date - delayed due to safe modes affecting MIPS instrument characterizations, and updates released to SSC website on Jan 20, 2004.

• Version 2.6: August 22, 2003. Revised background estimation for moving targets to reflect new capabilities within SPOT.

• Version 2.5: July 25, 2003. Revised PCRS peak-up section.

• Version 2.4: July 21, 2003. Added explanation of how to use PCRS GSC. Updated IRS peak-up example to use 3C273 as target. Clarified entry of proper motions. Updated IRS figures and text for SPOT 7.5.

• Version 2.3: May 1, 2003. Updated with info from current Call for Proposals. Improved figure quality. Minor edits.

• Version 2.2: November 22, 2002. Replaced IRS chapter with 2 new IRS examples: staring mode, and spectral mapping observations.

• Version 2.0: November, 2002. Updated sensitivities.

• Version 1.0: April 15, 2002.

Acknowledgements

The Spitzer Science Center would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people to this Observation Planning Cookbook:

The document was edited and compiled by Gillian Wilson and the SSC Science User Support Team.

Chapters 1, 2, 4 & 5 were originally written by Gordon K. Squires, and updated by Gillian Wilson.

Chapters 6 & 7 were originally written by Donald W. Hoard, with contributions from Bruce McCollum, and updated by Ranga-Ram Chary.

Chapter 8 was originally written by Harry Teplitz.

Chapters 9-11 and 13-15 were originally written by Luisa M. Rebull. Chapter 11 was updated by Vikki Meadows. Chapter 14 was updated by Gillian Wilson.

Chapter 12 was originally written by Nanyao Lu.