Call for Yale observing proposals for 2010A

Proposals are solicited for Yale observing time on the SMARTS telescopes, WIYN, and the Keck telescopes. Full proposals are due on Friday September 11, 2009. For Keck, pre-proposals are due on Friday September 4, 2009.

Time requests for all instruments and telescopes should be formatted using the Yale-adapted NOAO proposal form:

yaleprop.tex (example proposal)
yaleprop.pdf (pdf file of example)
yprop10A.sty (latex style file to use)

The deadline for all telescopes is the same, and a single TAC will review all proposals. Important information on the proposal procedures can be found in this document. Completed proposals, and Keck pre-proposals, should be sent to Victoria Gardner.

Submitted proposals are posted on a password protected website for TAC review. TAC members may click here to access this website.

Information relevant to particular facilities follows below.

SMARTS

Yale has a large amount of time, but some of it is pre-allocated to programs that provide financial and administrative support to SMARTS. There are about 45 nights per semester available for programs that do not provide resources (note that these are "user nights" for traditional observing - service observing costs 1.5 x traditional observing, and is based on 9 hrs/night). If proposers can provide some resources (dollars, or occasionally other kinds of support) then we can get more nights - please see Charles Bailyn about this possibility if you are interested.

For semester 2010A (February-July) SMARTS will continue to offer five instruments on four telescopes. Note also the observing modes:

1.5m telescope: Spectroscopy with RCSpec (low res) or echelle (high res) Service observing only. Monitoring or ToO programs are supported. Gratings 47 and 26 are greatly favored for the RC Spec - others are allowed, but may be unschedulable. Observations are quite restricted when 9 <LST<19.

1.3m telescope: Optical and IR photometry with ANDICAM. BVRIJHK only. Service observing only. No more than 1 hr/night per program except in special cases. Monitoring and ToO programs are strongly encouraged.

1.0m telescope: Optical photometry with Y4KCam (20 arcminute field 4K x 4K). Traditional observing only. Many filters available (see CTIO list). This telescope is often undersubscribed, especially for bright time, so we can sometimes exceed our official allocation.

0.9m telescope: Optical photometry with 2K camera (13 arcminute field). Many filters available (see CTIO list). Both traditional observing and service observing are available, in a week-on/week-off pattern. Traditional observers should apply for a full week of observing. Service observing is allocated mostly in full, or at the least half, nights, so monitoring/ToO programs are hard to accomodate on this telescope.

WIYN

Yale has a 17% share of WIYN, but some time is taken off the top for engineering, commissioning, etc.

Because the Yale/NOAO time trade is still in effect in 2010A (last semester), Yale will have a total of ~20 nights in 2010A, ~12 dark, ~5 gray, ~3 bright.

Available instruments are MiniMo, SparsePak, WHIRC, and Hydra.

Keck

We have 15 nights per year, which means 7 or 8 per semester. There are also up to 5 nights per year available for collaborative projects between Caltech and Yale. Such projects have a Caltech PI, and are submitted through the Caltech TAC.

Yale Keck time is open to faculty and postdocs. Postdocs applying for time must have a faculty member sign-off on the proposal. Sign-off implies that the faculty member thinks the proposal is scientifically worthwhile, reasonable for Keck and Yale, and feasible for the postdoc.

Anyone applying for Keck time must submit a pre-proposal one week before the proposal deadline to Victoria. For 2010A the pre-proposal deadline is Friday, September 4. The pre-proposal should list the intended telescope (Keck I or II), instrument, number of nights, lunar phase, and the possible observing period (e.g., "Oct-Dec"). The pre-proposal information will be made available on a website so that proposers can amend their proposals based on the anticipated proposal pressure for a particular telescope, time of year, and/or lunar phase. The pre-proposal information only serves to help spread proposals over these parameters: the actual proposal may obviously deviate from the pre-proposal, and the pre-proposal will not be taken into account in the TAC process. The department pre-proposals for 2010A can be found here.

Information on available Keck instruments etc. can be found via the Caltech call for proposals, at www.astro.caltech.edu/~tac/obsforms/ and also directly at the Keck website.