Proposers to the observing call for NEID should use this calculator to estimate the exposure times for their observations given a target SNR or RV precision, and the inverse of those functions. This exposure time calculator was written by the NEID Science Team and is based on initial best-estimates for the total system throughput as a function of wavelength, precision from the default data pipeline, and based on template stellar spectra at vsini = 2 km/s and solar metallicity. All throughput estimates are deliberately conservative, and there is an additional 30% margin built-in on top of this conservatism.

This calculator will be updated as better estimates of system performance become available, and as on-sky performance is measured.

Calculate Instrumental Signal-to-Noise