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Call for Observing Proposals for 2007A


  1. CALL FOR PROPOSALS for UAO Jan-Apr 2007, for long-term at UAO telescopes (not Magellan) for 2007A, and for Magellan 2007A

  2. People at LPL, Physics, ASU, NAU, Virginia, Minnesota, Montreal, and Carthage, please send out your equivalents of allsteward.

    Virginia, Minnesota, Montreal, and Carthage people: send edo@as.arizona.edu your favorite contact person if we have it wrong.

  3. PROPOSAL DEADLINE is Tues, Oct 24, at NOON, in the box in the Director's office. Ten (10) copies are required.

    mailing address:

    Steward Observatory
    c/o Laura Forsyth
    Director's Office, Room N205
    The University of Arizona
    933 N Cherry
    Tucson, AZ 85721
    tel: (520) 621-6524

  4. People to contact with problems or questions:

  5. Useful websites:

  6. Short set of comments
    • We revised the form again! But, all that changed was that the "past/present/future" lines on the bottom of page 1 are gone, and replaced with a narrative near the "past use" area.
    • For long-term, select "long-term" as proposal type. There's plenty of room to list all runs for semesters I,II,III, on the first page (12 lines possible).
    • Short-term props are limited to 2 pages of text and 1 page of figures. Long-term are limited to 3 pages of text, including why the project would benefit substantially from long-term status; and 2 pages of figures. If you run into any problems with page limits on the form, contact edo or Paul asap.
    • PI INSTRUMENTS: there's a list here. Most PI instruments require a signature. The instruments may be unavailable at the time you need, may be in a state of change, and you will benefit by consulting with the PI. If a signature is required, it MUST be obtained.
    • Note that the natural guide star system requires a pre-proposal to the AO group a week in advance of our deadline; contact Matt Kenworthy or Phil Hinz.
    • Please also note that we are awaiting the dates of availability of Hectospec, Hectochelle, Megacam, and SWIRC, all of which are CFA PI instruments that do not require a signature. Consultation with the PI is still a good idea.

  7. Longer and more detailed comments

    1. We are accepting long-term proposals for the MMT (NOT Magellan) and smaller telescopes THIS TIME ONLY for the calendar year 2007. Note that long-term status at the MMT will be given ONLY to VERY highly rated proposals; all long-term proposals will also be considered for short-term time as if they were a normal proposal.

    2. There is an opportunity to use a new instrumental capability at Magellan in a shared-risk mode: "A limited number of nights will be available for block scheduling of the IMACS tunable filter using only the H-alpha blocking filter. These nights will be for shared risk observing together with the MMTF instrument group. A summary of the MMTF and contact information for the MMTF group can be found at http://www.astro.umd.edu/~bjw/mmtf/. These constraints will apply to any successful Steward proposal for this capability. Clearly, you should talk to the MMTF people if you are interested on applying for this capability. Put "Imacs/MMTF" as the instrument on the form.

    3. There is an opportunity to propose for the occultation of a fairly bright star by Pluto, this occultation occurs in March 2006. If you plan to propose for this night for the occultation, and have not done so already, please contact Faith Vilas at the MMTO (fvilas@mmto.org). Normal proposals will be submitted, but will be read by a small second TAC composed of people from Steward, SAO, and MMTO, AFTER our TAC tentatively grants time. You might be competing against MMTO, SAO and NOAO (through TSIP time).

    4. New past/present/future narrative near end of proposal, replacing the bottom lines on cover page from last time.

      "The TAC needs to understand the scope of this project. First, tell us how many UAO nights you've already had for this project, how many you're asking for this time, and give a good guess for how many you'll need to complete the project. Second, if substantial amounts of the observing for this project are coming from non-UAO telescopes, tell us about that observing, and tell us how the UAO part fits in. Third, if you are collaborating with people who have telescopes, and especially if you are part of a very large collaboration, tell us who is leading the project, and how UAO time and your participation fit into the large project."

    5. You MUST use the new template proposal form available at http://james.as.arizona.edu/~psmith/proposals/forms.html

      We DO NOT support a WORD (Bill Gates) version.

    6. As of this moment (noon, Sept 24), the massive HTML document that describes more than you want to know about filling out the forms is being revised to incorporate all of the above. If you see any seeming discrepancies, please email them to edo@as.arizona.edu

      This document is only available in the on-line HTML version.