Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Observing Strategy Assessment

Given an instrument and a strategy for measuring the cosmic microwave background anisotropy, one should be able to calculate the expected uncertainties on the angular power spectrum, or on the parameters of a model spectrum. Here I present a semi-analytic method for doing so that is applicable to both differential and map-making observations. As an example, I examine the case of a balloon-borne bolometric instrument to be flown this spring (MSAM2). I find that a smoothly scanning secondary is better than a chopping one and that any simple analytic formula for expected power-spectrum uncertainty can be wrong by as much as a factor of two