[ASA] Call for SkyMapper and 2.3m Proposals

Thu Oct 27 12:25:49 AEDT 2016

Dear Observer,

This is the call for proposals for

*         the ANU 2.3m Telescope, Quarter 2017A (1st February to 30th April 2017), AND

*         non-survey time on the ANU SkyMapper telescope, Semester 2017A (Jan-Jun)

The deadline for both telescopes is 23:59 November 15, 2016.

2.3m

1st February to 30th April

Instruments available:
Nasymth A: WiFeS   Nasymth B: Imager or echelle.

Observing proposals must be submitted electronically via the RSAA web pages.
Full instructions are available at http://rsaa.anu.edu.au/observers/observing-rsaa.  You will need the most recent versions of the template and style files which can be obtained from the web pages.

PLEASE NOTE

(1)    WiFeS users are requested to indicate on the proposal form whether they will be present at the telescope or observe remotely.  Remote observing is available only to experienced WiFeS observers but can now be carried out from Australian sites other than Mt Stromlo subject to technical feasibility.

(2)    Proposals for use of the 2.3m will only be considered if the PI is from the ANU or from another institution that contributes financially or has contributed financially and directly to the building and/or operations of the 2.3m telescope and its commissioned instruments.  These institutions include those that collaborated on the successful ARC LIEF bid to fund the Blue Arm of the WiFeS spectrograph and the successful ARC LIEF bid for the WiFeS upgrade.  All such proposals will be judged on their scientific merit alone.  There will be no quotas placed on the amount of time available for qualifying institutions.  These policies will remain in place for the present.  Currently eligible (non-ANU) institutions are the AAO, UQld, UNSW and USyd as well as Swinburne, Monash and Macquarie.

(3)    Macquarie, Swinburne and Monash proposals have a certain amount of guaranteed time. All proposals wishing to claim this should state explicitly in the abstract how much of this time they wish to claim.

(4)    Limited first night support at the telescope is provided to new observers.  Nevertheless new observers are strongly encouraged to be present at the telescope at least one night before their observing run to familiarise themselves with the telescope and instrument operating systems. The latest information on using the telescope and its instruments can be found at http://rsaa.anu.edu.au/observers/obsering-rsaa.

(5)    Proposers are reminded to limit their scientific case to TWO pages, including figures and references.

If you have technical problems in using the web-based submission process, please email tacinfo at mso.anu.edu.au.

SkyMapper

Call for Proposals for non-survey time on the SkyMapper Telescope: Semester 2017A (Jan-Jun)

Application deadline: 23:59 15 November 2016

Hours available:
---------------------
dark:   32.5hrs -- ANU: 25.0hrs, AU: 7.5hrs
grey:   25.0hrs -- ANU: 19.5hrs, AU: 5.5hrs
bright: 14.5hrs -- ANU: 11.0hrs, AU: 3.5hrs
--------------------------------
Total:  72.0hrs -- ANU: 55.5hrs, AU: 16.5hrs

dark - Moon phase < 35% + Moon phase < 65% when Moon below the horizon grey - Moon phase 35-65% when Moon in the sky + Moon phase 65-94% bright - Moon phase > 94%

NEW FOR 2017A:

Proposals must now specify the required Moon phase (bright/grey/dark) for their observations. This is necessary to ensure the long-term balance between survey and non-survey observations.

We also announce the availability of SkyMapper Discretionary Time of up to 3 nights per semester in total. Requests for this time can be sent at short notice during the observing semester by email tochristian.wolf at anu.edu.au, but will only be granted for urgent and potential high-impact observations that exploit the uniqueness of SkyMapper under circumstances, where a regular proposal could not have been anticipated.

------------
How to apply
------------

For full instructions for proposals and information on SkyMapper please refer to https://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~skymap/instructions_SMprop.html

You can only apply for images that will not replicate the observations of the public SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey (all-sky dec < +2, 100 sec images in uv (6 visits) and griz (4 visits), operating until 2019). The SkyMapper team can prioritise public survey fields to a limited extent in any given semester. If you'd like a field to be observed with priority, please do not submit a proposal, but contact the SkyMapper team (skymapper at anu.edu.au) who will help on a best-effort basis. Proposals should not directly compete with SkyMapper legacy science projects, which are listed athttp://skymapper.anu.edu.au/science-projects/

All proposals MUST specify how their time is to be broken down between ANU and other Australian time.

Proposals should include a two-page scientific and technical justification. Please email your proposal topaul.francis at anu.edu.au  before the deadline. If you do not receive confirmation that we've received your e-mail within 24 hours, please contact us again.

Your proposal will be ranked by the ANU-TAC and, if successful, forwarded to the SkyMapper team for scheduling and robotic observation. All images will receive basic processing by the SkyMapper Science Data Pipeline alongside survey observations (and thus will be done in temporal order).

-----------------
Telescope Summary
-----------------

SkyMapper is a 1.3m telescope with a 5.7 sq. deg. FoV and a 268 Megapixel camera. There are six primary filters (uvgriz), plus an H-alpha filter subject to strong scheduling constraints. If you have any questions not answered in the documentation, the SkyMapper team is available to help (skymapper at anu.edu.au).

-------------------------------------------------

Paul Francis
Chair, ANU TAC
Mt Stromlo Observatory, and the Physics Education Centre
College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Building 38a, Tel 02 6125 2824 or 8031
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
paul.francis at anu.edu.au<mailto:paul.francis at anu.edu.au>

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~pfrancis/
CRICOS Provider #00120C
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/asa/attachments/20161027/1d3693ef/attachment.html>