Read the latest CRIRES news, and look at the CRIRES telescope allocation schedule.

Read the User manual and prepare your observations well in advance:

• Define your observing strategy and decide on the templates to be used
• Know how to use p2 and prepare the observing blocks (OB)
• Keep in mind that the AO NGS mode is only permitted for humidity below 50%. In case of high humidity or very bad seeing, only NoAO OBs can be observed (we strongly recommend to prepare for this case).
  
• Paranal will not create your OBs.
  

Remember to prepare a backup program in case of poor seeing, clouds or strong winds.

• If the wind speed is higher than 12 m/s then the telescope needs to point at least 90 degrees away. The North/South cutoff is at DEC = -24.6 deg and the wind normally (not always) comes from the North.
• Without prior-approval, only targets in your Phase 1 proposal can be observed. For this reason, send the backup request well in advance and not at the last minute when it may be impossible to approve. Use this web form.

Important: If you plan to observe with your own visitor gas cell, then contact crires@eso.org by latest 2 weeks before the proposal submission deadline. Otherwise it may not be possible to use it.

Quick-look reduced data will be available of your observations. However, these should not be used for science purposes, as they are processed with static (old) calibrations. You should obtain your data from the archive archive.eso.org using the calSelector option to associate the calibrations nearest in time to your observations. Note that the reduced data will not contain any information on the radial velocity.

... and: you may want to bring some good chocolate to Paranal - the astronomers and telescope & instrument operators would be very happy! :)

General information on Visitor Mode runs can be found here.