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Call for Proposals
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This Material Provided for Reference Only
1.0 Telescopes
- Keck I and Keck II, with possible trades for SUBARU time.
- Palomar 200-inch.
- P60 & P48 covered in a supplemental call late in calendar 2017
2.0 Eligibility
Caltech Faculty, Senior Research Associates, Senior Research Fellows,
Post-Doctoral Scholars, Senior Research Staff (approved by the COO Director) and Graduate Students may
apply for COO-administered observing time at Keck and Palomar, subject to the following:
- Applicants must be in residence at Caltech at the time proposals are submitted.
- Caltech Faculty and Senior Research Associates may submit no more than three Keck proposals
and/or any number of Palomar proposals.
- Caltech Senior Research Fellows, Post-Doctoral Scholars and Senior Research Staff may submit any number
of Palomar proposals but are limited to one Keck proposal per semester.
- Caltech Graduate Students may apply for Palomar time only.
3.0 Proposal Format
- Each proposal should cover a single, coherent, well-defined scientific topic.
- Proposals consist of three parts: Cover sheet, Discussion, Observing list.
- A report of your observing history and bibliography (see below) is an essential adjunct to your proposal.
- If you submit two or more Keck proposals, the one representing your highest-priority should be designated
as Principal; all others are Secondary. Similarly, if you submit two or more proposals for the Palomar telescopes,
your highest priority project should be designated as Principal; all others are Secondary.
- In 2018A: all CIT-COO telescope time proposals are required to follow a proposal template
available in either MS Word
or LaTeX form (see also the supporting
latexdefs.tex package).
Note that the page allocation for technical sections has slightly expanded
in the 18A template relative to the 17B version.
3.1 Cover Sheets
-
Keck: Log into your Keck account at the
Keck Observer Login Page.
Fill in the required information. For guidance regarding the selection of acceptable runs, see the
appendix below.
-
Palomar: Log into the appropriate Palomar cover sheet
(see links at left) and fill in the required information.
3.2 Discussion & Figures
Using either the MS Word
or LaTeX proposal template,
provide a short (see page limits, below) description of the project, explaining
the scientific goals and methodology, and justifying the observing time and equipment
requested in the present semester. Include citations to publications referenced in the
discussion. New project proposals should present an estimate of the total observing time
required to complete the project; continuing project proposals should summarize the status
of previously obtained data and an updated estimate of the observing time needed to complete
the project. The new proposal template is structured to facilitate proposals responsive to these
requirements; please fill out the template following (and replacing) the embedded instructions.
Page limits
[Definition: 1 page = One side of a sheet 8½ x 11 inches, with suitable margins.
Type size = 11- or 12-point.]
Description | Discussion & Figures |
General Proposals (both Primary and Secondary) | 6 pages plus observing list |
Palomar - Large Project | 8 pages plus observing list |
3.3 Observing List
Provide a list of targets to be observed, including names, coordinates (in
sexagesimal format),
and apparent magnitudes. Observing lists do not count in the proposal page limit.
3.4 Submitting the Proposal
When finished, combine your cover sheet, discussion and observing list into a single pdf document
(see note below)
and attach it to an e-mail to
brucato-[at]-astro.caltech.edu
not later than
.
If you do not get a confirmation within 48 hours that your proposal was received, contact brucato@astro.caltech.edu immediately.
4.0 Observing History and Bibliography
The Director and the Time Allocation Committee place a high premium on the effective use
of telescope time and the timely publication of results derived from the observations.
Accordingly, all proposers are required to submit an Observing History and Bibliography
report as a separate document, distinct from any proposals. Your report should consist of:
Observing History: List the observing time allocated to you for all projects in the last eight semesters
[2014A to 2017B inclusive] and summarize the status of each. Provide:
- Semester.
- Telescope and proposal number.
- Instrument(s) used.
- Number of nights allocated and the number of nights useable.
- For ToO projects, give a comprehensive list of the interrupts invoked, including for each the date, telescope,
instrument and duration.
This report is important for all proposers, but particularly so for applicants who are requesting continuations of
projects previously awarded time by the CIT TAC.
Bibliography: Provide a bibliography of your refereed papers based on Keck (or from observing time awarded
through Keck trades) and/or Palomar data, published or submitted for publication during the last eight
semesters [2014A to 2017B, inclusive], even if you were not the principal investigator of the observing proposal(s).
Attach the report (as a pdf document) to an e-mail to brucato-[at]-astro.caltech.edu
(not later than
).
5.0 General Notes
- Date-Specific Observing is restricted to projects requiring observations at particular times
(e.g., occultations, transits, critical phase coverage in a binary, etc.). Proposers requesting date-specific
observations must check the Date-Specific box on the proposal cover sheet, and justify the date specificity (i.e. see
the proposal template section 2.5). For Palomar, down-load
the DS Supplement, fill in the required information
and include it in your proposal as an addendum to the cover sheet.
5.1 Special Notes - Keck
- Only a single proposal is needed for a project involving both Keck I and Keck II.
-
By June 2016 Keck SSC/CARA Board action there are (as of 2017A) policies in place for
Time-Domain Astronomy (TDA)
Cadence
and
Partnership Target of Opportunity (ToO)
observation modes. These new policies lead directly to notes 5.1.3 and 5.1.4 below.
- Partial nights (¾, ½, ¼) may be requested at Keck.
Observers should be advised that it may not always be possible to schedule partial night allocations.
- Following 5.1.2 above there are now five observing modes at Keck relevant for CIT proposers:
- "Classical" observing.
- CIT Internal ToO - Target of Opportunity interrupts of Caltech observer (see
CIT TOO page).
- Partnership ToO - Target of Opportunity interrupts when the interrupted observer is from Caltech, University
of California, University of Hawaii or NASA. See
Partnership ToO Policy
- Cadenced observing. See
Cadence Policy
- Snapshot observing (as a special, single-instance case of Cadence observing).
- For projects involving both Keck and Palomar, submit the Keck and Palomar cover sheets
separately. The discussion and observing list need be attached only to the Keck cover sheet.
- For Keck instrument availability and special considerations see
Keck Instrument Availability.
- NIRES: NIRES will be available for shared-risk science beginning in
February.
- SUBARU exchange: The SUBARU-KECK exchange will continue as last
semester with flexibility as to the number of nights available for
exchange. The final number will be determined based on the demand from
each community. Keck will offer LRIS, HIRES, OSIRIS, and MOSFIRE on Keck-I,
and DEIMOS, ESI, NIRSPEC, KCWI, and NIRC2 on Keck-II. Subaru will offer
FOCAS, HDS, MOIRCS, IRCS (with NGS/LGSAO188 elements), SCExAO, CHARIS+SCExAO,
COMICS, and Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC).
5.2 Special Notes - Palomar
- The Hale Telescope Palm-3000
(P3K)
adaptive optics facility will be scheduled for
engineering upgrades in February and March 2018, and will consequently be unavailable
for science observing during that time. We are confident P3K will return to service
in early April 2018.
- Observers may request full or half nights for Hale/P200.
Observers should be advised that it may not always be possible to schedule partial night allocations.
- For projects involving more than one Palomar telescope, submit the appropriate cover sheet for each
separately. The discussion, figures and observing list need be attached to only the cover sheet for the larger telescope.
- For Hale Telescope instruments, see
Palomar Observer Information.
Private and Semi-private
instruments may be requested only with the prior approval of the instrument builder. Please include in the discussion a
confirmation that appropriate arrangements have been made.
- DBSP, LFC, WASP, WIRC and TripleSpec may be operated by remote observing. For additional information, see
Cahill Remote
Observing Facilities.
- At the 200-inch telescope, you may request instruments to be installed simultaneously at the prime
focus and Cassegrain focus but you must fully justify the request in your proposal. Secondary instruments should be
requested only if they are integral to the program and if there is a very high probability that they
will be used during the observing run.
- Proposals for 200-inch time in support of Large Projects may be submitted. See
Large Project
Proposals for details.
- Palomar 60-inch (P60) Telescope - A supplemental call for P60 time is being planned for late in
calendar 2017. Details on this call will be publicized at a later time.
Note: The 60-inch telescope is operated in Service Observing mode only.
- Oschin (P48) Telescope - A supplemental call for P48 telescope time is being planned for late in
calendar 2017. Details on this call will be publicized at a later time.
Note: The Oschin Telescope is operated in Service Observing mode only.
Note on Merging PDF Documents
Combine the cover sheet and discussion section (including the figures
and observing list) of each proposal into a single pdf document.
For information on merging pdf documents, see
PDF File Merging
6.0 Instrumentation
6.1 Keck Instruments
Keck Telescope instrument information is available through the
WMKO Keck Instrument Home Page.
Supplementary information on instrument status is available at
Keck Instrument Availability
6.2 200-inch Telescope Instruments
Instrumentation for P200 is summarized on the
P200 Instrument Page.
If you propose to bring your own equipment to P200 please specify the
appropriate focus code [Prime Focus (OE-PF), Cassegrain (OE-Cass w/o P3K),
Cassegrain + P3K Base (OE-Cass w/ P3K)] on your cover sheet.
7.0 Appendix
7.1 Specifying Preferred Observing Runs
The system of P's and A's to designate preferred and acceptable runs (respectively), intended to take the guess-work out of scheduling,
rests on two conditions: First, observers need to be as generous as possible in designating acceptable runs, since overly-constrictive
selections make scheduling difficult and, in extreme cases, may even preclude the assignment of observing time to the project. A good
approach would be to tag any observing run as Acceptable if the data can be obtained during that period. Second, the scheduler will
not assign observing time in a run that has not been tagged by the observer with a P or an A. Should circumstances obtain that such
assignment might be needed, the scheduler will discuss the situation with the observer before any exception to the rule is applied.
Putting all the P's and A's on a single line means you want the time scheduled in a single block, if possible. If you want the time
distributed into two or more blocks, use a separate line for each block.
COO Proposal Call 2018A / v 18A.v1.0 Last updated: 19 September 2017 RJB/AFB/ACM
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