Tim Jenness, Frossie Economou, Remo P. Tilanus
Joint Astronomy Centre
The James Clerk Maxwell telescope (JCMT), a submillimetre facility on Mauna Kea, has recently adopted flexible scheduling. This is expected to result in fewer astronomers travelling out to Hawaii and more data being taken by local observatory staff. In order to allow astronomers to monitor their data from their home institutions, JCMT has adopted the WWW Observing Remotely Facility (WORF) already offered by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). WORF allows astronomers to eavesdrop on their data using the Netscape browser with minimal impact on observatory staff and computer systems. The UKIRT implementation has been extended to meet the differing expectations of the JCMT community and has many additions including a telescope status screen, the ability to access the observation log and the use of a conferencing tool between the observer and the eavesdropper(s).