JWST Instrument Overheads
The JWST instrument overhead times are adopted by the Astronomer's Proposal Tool for each overhead activity,
The Astronomers Proposal Tool (APT) charges users times and overheads for their observing programs (see overview and summary) to provide a resource accounting for each visit as well as for the proposal as a whole. Instrument overheads are charged for operations performed during the use of each instrument. The actual overheads applied in APT may be adjusted over time as more is learned about real operations, but representative values are shown for reference in Table 1. Further details for each instrument are provided in Instrument Specific Overheads. Details for your observing program are available by exporting the times report from APT.
Table 1. Typical instrument overheads (in seconds) for common operations
Operation | NIRCam imaging | NIRSpec MSA | NIRISS WFSS | MIRI imaging | FGS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Onboard Script System (OSS) compilation (per exposure) | 40 | 65 | 30 | 25 | 5 |
Exposure overhead† (full frame, single integration) | 69 | 74 (IRS2 readout) 41 (normal) | 31 | 34 | 40 |
Filter/grism change | 110–190 | 200 | 84–140 | 50 | N/A |
Visit cleanup‡ | 105 | 170 | 62 | 50 | 50 |
† Exposure overhead is overhead charged ("Exp Ovhd" in the APT times report), not the exposure time itself.
‡ Visit cleanup is charged in addition to the 284 s to acquire a guide star at the beginning of each visit.