From daniel.zucker at mq.edu.au Tue Feb 13 08:38:25 2018 From: daniel.zucker at mq.edu.au (Daniel Zucker) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 08:38:25 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Final-Final Reminder: Reaching Gender Equity in STEM Panel Discussion *this Thursday* 15th Feb 2-4:30pm Canberra Message-ID: Dear All, There are still some spots available - please forward this to any interested people? in your organisations! _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ We would like to invite you to a panel discussion on gender?equity, diversity and inclusion in astronomical organisations. This special?event is being held during the European Southern Observatory (ESO)?Delegation?visit to Australia in February 2018. Ms Mich?le P?ron, ESO Director of?Engineering, is very active in this area at ESO and will participate as a panel?member in this discussion. During the event, panel members will sharing insights and?perspectives on their organisation's current initiatives on gender equity,?inclusion and diversity. Each panel member will speak for 5 minutes,?followed?by two personal stories. The event will be facilitated by Mrs Jane Urquhart, AAO?Director and Head of Science and Commercialisation Policy Division in the?Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Following the panel?discussion,?Jane will lead a group discussion looking to the future and the next steps for?our organisations. The full panel includes: ?? ? ???Ms Mich?le P?ron ESO, Director of?Engineering ?? ? ???Prof Lisa Kewley, RSAA ANU, Director ASTRO 3D?Centre of Excellence ?? ? ???Prof Anna Moore RSAA ANU, Director AITC?(Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre) ?? ? ???A/Prof?Daniel Zucker MU, Chair of the Astronomical?Society of Australia IDEA Chapter (Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Astronomy) ?? ? ???Dr Jill Rathborne, SAGE (Science in Australia?Gender Equity) ?? ? ?? Dr Nuria Lorente, AAO, AAO Software Engineer Personal stories will be shared by Dr Jo Dawson, MU and Dr?Tayyaba Zafar, AAO. Venue: National Arboretum Canberra Tickets: There are only 80 places so a booking?is essential Date: Thursday, 15th February 2018 Booking link: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/cksACQnzP0t3OpKZhxivTl?domain=eventbrite.com Time: 2.00-4.30pm Facilitated panel discussion for 1.5-2 hours followed by a?networking afternoon tea. Best regards, Daniel Zucker and Katrina Sealey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From itso at aao.gov.au Tue Feb 13 12:24:41 2018 From: itso at aao.gov.au (International Telescopes Support Office) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 12:24:41 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Call for Australian Subaru Proposals in Semester 2018B Message-ID: <393b5f3f-a919-8a52-c299-35e19175828d@aao.gov.au> 2018B Call for Australian Subaru proposals Proposals for Australian time on the Subaru 8.2m telescope on Mauna Kea in Semester 2018B (1 Aug 2018 - 31 January 2019) are due by *2:00pm AEDT, Thursday 8 March 2018.* Separate calls for Magellan and Blanco proposals in Semester 2018B, as well as ESO access in Period 102 (Oct 2018 - Mar 2019) will be issued shortly. Background The Subaru 8.2 metre telescope located on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). In December 2016 Astronomy Australia Ltd negotiated a new collaborative program with NAOJ, providing 5 nights in Semester 2018A and 5 nights in Semester 2018B for the Australian community on the Subaru telescope. Australia is also making technical contributions to the Subaru program, and Japanese astronomers will get access to 4 nights on the AAT in 2018. Following the end of AAL's access to the Gemini and Keck telescopes after Semester 2017B, Subaru is now the only northern hemisphere facility available to the entire Australian community in 2018. Instruments The facility instruments currently available on Subaru are: * AO 188 , a 188 element natural or laser guide star adaptive optics system delivering diffraction-limited images in the near infrared to instruments including IRCS, SCExAO, and CHARIS. * COMICS, a mid-infrared camera and spectrograph covering wavelengths from 7.5-25 microns. * FOCAS provides optical imaging, longslit and multi-slit spectroscopy over a 6 arcmin field of view. * HDS , an optical high dispersion spectrograph with a resolution up to R=160,000. * HSC provides optical imaging over a 1.5 degree diameter field of view. * IRCS, a near-infrared (0.9-5.6 microns) camera with coronagraphic and polarimetric modes, as well as longslit spectroscopy with resolution up to R=20,000. IRCS is normally used in conjunction with natural or laser guide star adaptive optics fed by AO188. * MOIRCS provides imaging and low-resolution longslit or multi-object spectroscopy from 0.9-2.5 microns over a 4 x 7 arcmin field of view. In addition some visitor instruments are available by collaboration with the instrument PI: * SCExAO delivers high contrast images of the innermost surroundings of bright sources. * CHARIS provides near-infrared coronagraphic imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy of exoplanets, disks, and brown dwarfs with SCExAO+AO188. * VAMPIRES enables diffraction-limited imaging in the visible with polarimetric capabilities. * IRD - Infrared Doppler - provides high spectral resolution echelle spectroscopy and radial velocity measurements from 0.97 to 1.75 um simultaneously combined with AO188. ?Further information on Subaru instruments can be found on the Subaru Instrumentation page. Applying for time The policies and process for Australian access to Subaru time are as follows: 1. Researchers affiliated with a research institution in Australia at the time of application can submit proposals as a PI. 2. Collaboration with Japanese astronomers is encouraged, but is not a requirement for submitting a proposal. 3. Full details on proposal submission can be found on the Subaru proposals page . Australian proposals should be submitted directly to Subaru using the Subaru ProMS (Proposal Management System ). You will need to register for a ProMS account if you do not already have one. 4. *Applicants are required to explicitly specify **"[AUS Time]"**in the title of their proposals to distinguish these from regular proposals*. **Applications from Australia which do not include this in the title will still be considered for Subaru open-use time. 5. Australian time has the following restrictions: * Time exchange programs (proposals to use Gemini or Keck instruments) are not eligible. * Service mode programs, ToO programs, and HSC queue-mode programs are not eligible. This is because for these programs the execution is not guaranteed. Proposals using HSC will be executed in classical mode. * Subaru Intensive program proposals are not eligible. 6. Australian proposals for Subaru time will be assessed and ranked by the Subaru TAC. Proposals will be made available to ATAC for their consideration, and the ATAC Chair will be given the opportunity to convey ATAC's view of the relative merits of each proposal to the Subaru TAC. 7. The Subaru TAC will allocate observing time to the Australian proposals in the order of proposal score until the total number of nights allocated reaches five, even if their scores are below the threshold for normal proposals to be approved. 8. If, when the total number of nights allocated to the Australian proposals reaches five, there are more Australian proposals above the threshold for normal proposals to be approved, the Subaru TAC will still allocate observation time to them as a part of open-use time. 9. Australian programs will be executed in classical mode, meaning the observer(s) should be present either at the Mauna Kea summit or NAOJ Mitaka HQ remote observing room. *AAL is currently considering whether observer travel funding will be made available to Australian Subaru users in 2018B.* An announcement is expected prior to the Subaru 2018B proposal deadline of 8 March 2018. Need help? Further information about Australian access to Subaru can be found at on the Subaru ITSO web pages . Please direct any questions to the International Telescopes Support Office (itso at aao.gov.au) at the AAO. Stuart Ryder Head of International Telescopes Support #ITSOaao -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MITA.BRIERLEY at ASTRONOMYAUSTRALIA.ORG.AU Tue Feb 13 15:09:33 2018 From: MITA.BRIERLEY at ASTRONOMYAUSTRALIA.ORG.AU (Mita Brierley) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 15:09:33 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Magellan access update: Last semester of access will be 2018B Message-ID: <002501d3a480$742a8870$5c7f9950$@ASTRONOMYAUSTRALIA.ORG.AU> Dear All, With the Australia-ESO partnership now providing Australian-based astronomers, with access to large optical telescopes, AAL has been reassessing other purchases of time on similar facilities. The Keck and Gemini access agreements lapsed in December 2017 and were not renewed. The Magellan access agreement was scheduled to continue until 2020 and AAL did not expect any changes to that agreement; however, the Magellan Council recently agreed to an early termination to the agreement. As such, this email is to announce that AAL has terminated its contract with the Carnegie Institution for Science for access to the Magellan Telescopes from 2019. Australian astronomers will have access to 15 nights on Magellan in 2018, with the final semester of access being 2018B. A call for proposals for 2018B will be issued by the International Telescopes Support Office in March 2018. Kind Regards, Mita Brierley ________________________________________ Dr Mita Brierley Senior Program Manager Astronomy Australia Ltd (Sydney Office) P: +61 2 9850 6371 E: mita.brierley at astronomyaustralia.org.au W: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/NpEsCZYM2VFDBWXQHzk90z?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simon.otoole at aao.gov.au Tue Feb 13 16:02:52 2018 From: simon.otoole at aao.gov.au (Simon O'Toole) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2018 16:02:52 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Announcing AAO Data Central 1.5 beta testing References: <03776695-CC7E-4859-842F-8634FA42918D@aao.gov.au> Message-ID: We are pleased to announce the beta version of AAO Data Central version 1.5. We invite all ASA members and collaborators to test the new features of the system at https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/dheyCJyp0qh1EQ7PSVdO3r?domain=datacentral.aao.gov.au . These features include: An image cutout tool , currently accessing data from the GAMA Panchromatic Data Release and DEVILS Data Release 0. A cone search tool A query tool A Content Management System for survey teams A survey team data cloud The first three tools can be accessed without logging in to Data Central. Alternatively, you can log in with your AAO/Lens account, which will allow you track your service history and retrieve previous queries and cutouts, and edit survey team pages (please contact your survey team PI to gain access). Additionally, Data Central provides a TAP (Table Access Protocol) service, for use with TOPCAT, Aladin and similar VO-compliant tools. To access the TAP service in e.g. TOPCAT, select the TAP option from the VO menu and under Selected TAP service enter https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/iT6WCOMxNyt0m26oi5mVDq?domain=datacentral.aao.gov.au and click Use Service. Other IVOA services will be added in the coming weeks. Known issues are currently documented on the bug report page , if you spot any additional issues please submit a report. Information for survey team members You may wish to update the meta-data surrounding the data products hosted at Data Central. Please contact the survey PI to suggest changes. Thanks, Simon O'Toole on behalf of the Data Central team -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aatts at aao.gov.au Thu Feb 15 11:54:25 2018 From: aatts at aao.gov.au (AAT Tech Secretary) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2018 13:54:25 +1300 Subject: [ASA] AAT Call for Proposals - Semester 2018B - deadline 5PM, 15 March 2018 Message-ID: <1BDB24DA-9435-4582-9FAC-DABC0892618A@aao.gov.au> 2018B Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) Call for Proposals The main proposal deadline for the AAT in Semester 2018B (August 2018 - January 2019) is: 15 March 2017, at 17:00 Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC + 11 hrs) Proposals to the Australian Time Allocation Committee (ATAC) must follow the new ATAC Policies and Procedures (available at this page ) and be submitted before the deadline using the Lens proposal form (available at this page ). Applying for AAT Telescope Time through ATAC Important information: AAT operations transferring to a consortium of Australian universities >From 1 July 2018, the AAO will no longer operate the AAT. Instead, AAT operations will be managed and funded through a consortium of Australian universities, led by the Australian National University (ANU). Accordingly, the AAO will consult this consortium regarding operational constraints following ATAC?s scientific ranking of proposals and prior to its preparation of the 18B schedule. The expectation is that there will be minimal change to the standard operating procedures for AAT observations following the transition, with the exceptions that, from July, successful applicants will be expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs to the observatory and will have more limited expert assistance on site. Further updates on the new operational model will be provided as they become available. Important information: Open Time and Paid Time on the AAT Australian proposals may seek either Open Time or Paid Time on the AAT. A proposal is Australian if at least half of the proposers and the lead proposer are based at Australian institutions. Open Time is only available to Australian proposals and is free to Open Time proposals; Paid Time is available to both Australian and non-Australian proposals. Non-Australian proposals can only access Paid Time, not Open Time. For 2018B up to 50 nights of Paid Time will be available on the AAT. Inquiries regarding the terms and conditions for AAT Paid Time can be made to the Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) office. The time allocation procedure starts with ATAC ranking all proposals by scientific merit, without regard to the Open Time or Paid Time status of the proposal. Paid Time proposals will be allocated to Paid Time in order of ATAC ranking (subject to practical constraints) until the available Paid Time is fully allocated. The remaining Australian proposals will then be allocated to Open Time in order of ATAC ranking (subject to practical constraints) until the available Open Time is fully allocated. Paid Time proposals always pay for time allocated. More details are available in the ATAC Policies and Procedures document at this link . Important information: proposal preparation Time available for new proposals: accounting for existing Large Programs and Director?s time, there are expected to be 138 nights available for new proposals in Semester 18B (31 dark, 34 grey, 73 bright). Due to the reduction in expert assistance at the telescope, proposers are required to describe the relevant experience and expertise of the team with the instrument(s) being applied for. Observers are encouraged to arrive sufficiently in advance of their run to gain such training as is needed for their run. The current Large AAT Programs, the OzDES and DEVILS surveys, have been allocated 31 dark or grey nights at certain RAs. New programs with targets outside of these RAs are more likely to be scheduled. The RA information for Large AAT Programs is available at this link . There will be no Call for Large Programs in 2018B. However, proposals for large amounts of time (30-50 nights) will be accepted in 2018B. A call for Large AAT programs to commence in 2019A is anticipated to be made in August 2018. Proposals for Long Term Programs spanning multiple semesters (more information at this link ) will not be accepted in 2018B, but are anticipated to be available again in 2019A. To help address issues associated with unconscious bias (e.g. see study at this link ) the format of the proposals has been changed: (1) PI information will not be provided to ATAC, (2) investigator information will be provided at the end of the proposal, (3) the list of investigators will be sorted alphabetically, and (4) investigators are required to use numerical citations for referencing. Lead investigators should avoid directly disclosing their identity in the science or technical justification sections. Feedback on these changes are welcome and should be sent to the AAT Technical Secretary . Based upon historical weather trends, about 33% of time is lost to bad weather. Proposers are therefore required to multiply their time requirement by a factor of 1.5 to allow for time lost to weather Important information: instrument availability and upgrades It is expected that the Veloce spectrograph will be available for shared-risk observing. Details on the instrument are given below. Veloce will be made available as shared-risk time in 2018B after its scheduled commissioning in 2018A. More details on Veloce?s capabilities are given below and on the Veloce webpage at this link . To prepare for commissioning of the Hector instrument, SAMI will be dismantled during 2018B. If a compelling proposal is submitted, then SAMI may be made available early in the semester before it is dismantled. If you plan to submit a proposal for SAMI, please contact the AAT Technical Secretary . The Observatory intends to decommission IRIS2 at the end of 2018A. The Observatory may consider delaying this by 6 months to the end of 2018B if a compelling proposal can be made. If you plan to submit a proposal for IRIS2, please contact the AAT Technical Secretary . A Target of Opportunity mode is now available with instruments using the 2dF positioner (AAOmega, HERMES) and KOALA. The Target of Opportunity policy is available at this link . HERMES is currently being upgraded, including improving the vacuum hold time of the dewars and the replacement of the field lenses to remove the cause of the high incidence of cosmic rays. Lens proposal submission system The AAO uses an online proposal submission system, known as Lens, which is available at this link . This system is a user account based system, which allows for improved security and better tracking of past and current proposals. There is an FAQ available for Lens, available via the FAQ tab in Lens itself, or via the direct link . All new users must register with the system at https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/H5u9CE8kz9tg2yWLU4W8Or?domain=aao.gov.au Note that users cannot be added to proposals if they are not registered in Lens. Please make sure that all investigators on a proposal have registered well before the deadline! For any queries or comments, please email lens at aao.gov.au . Historical oversubscription rates The figure below shows the historical oversubscription rates at the AAT. Large program allocations are excluded from these calculations and error bars are from Poisson statistics. The fluctuations are largely dominated by whether Large programs were already scheduled when the call for proposals was made. Numbers indicate the number of nights that were available in each semester. Status of AAT instruments Veloce Veloce will be a stabilized, high-resolution (R~80,000) echelle spectrograph. Initially Veloce will have only one of its three possible 'arms', each covering a different wavelength region: the first arm (Rosso) will cover ?580?930nm. Veloce will be fed by a 26-hexagonal-fibre integral field unit (19 target, 2 calibration, 5 sky/background), with an on-sky target area 2.5 arcseconds in diameter and with spatial scrambling through octagonal fibres. The optional simultaneous calibration will be a Menlo Systems laser comb for extremely precise wavelength calibration and/or a Thorium-Uranium-Xenon arc lamp. Veloce will be suitable for observing single targets brighter than i<14 magnitude and will be particularly good for red targets such as cool M dwarf stars. More information will be available on this page . Questions about instrument performance should be directed to the Veloce instrument scientist, Duncan Wright . SAMI SAMI is the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field unit that feeds the AAOmega spectrograph. SAMI provides 13 fibre-based IFUs called 'hexabundles', each with a field of view of 15 arcseconds, that are deployed by plug-plate anywhere within a 1-degree diameter field of view using the AAT's Prime Focus top end. The SAMI instrument will be dismantled during the 18B semester in preparation for the new multi-IFU instrument, Hector. If a compelling case is proposed, then SAMI may be made available early in the semester before it is dismantled. Since SAMI is a support-intensive instrument and support is no longer provided, any proposers must be trained SAMI pluggers (listed on the SAMI pluggers list) and must have a plan in place for tiling objects on the SAMI plates and producing plate configuration files for plate manufacture. Before writing your proposal, potential SAMI observers must contact the SAMI instrument scientist Julia Bryant . Constraints on observable targets with SAMI are given at this link . Note that the SAMI 2dFDR data reduction pipeline has been tested using the AAOmega gratings that are used for the SAMI survey (580V and 1000R), but has not been tested with other AAOmega gratings. HERMES HERMES is a four-channel, bench-mounted high-resolution spectrograph for use with the 2dF top end. The wavelength ranges of the four channels are fixed at 4715-4900 ?, 5649-5873 ?, 6478-6737 ? and 7585-7887 ?. The spectral resolution is nominally R?28,000, which can be raised to R?45,000. Questions about instrument performance should be directed to the HERMES instrument scientist, Gayandhi De Silva . More information about the instrument can be found at this link . KOALA KOALA (Kilo-fibre Optical AAT Lenslet Array) provides integral-field capability to the AAOmega spectrograph. KOALA has a selectable spatial resolution of 0.7 or 1.25 arcseconds and has good response at the extreme blue. Information on KOALA can be found in the instrumentation page at this link . Questions about performance should be directed to the KOALA instrument scientist, ?ngel L?pez-S?nchez . Remote observing Remote observing from the AAO's North Ryde headquarters is available as an option for all AAT facility instruments. This will continue to be an option for observers in Semester 18B, by request to Macquarie University, anticipated to be the organisation managing the future AAO North Ryde entity. Questions regarding this can be sent to questions at aao.gov.au . It is also possible to observe from the remote observing facilities at ANU and ICRAR. Remote observing is restricted to experienced observers who have used the AAT in the past two years. Service time If projects require fewer than 6 hours of observing, they can be performed in service time. Applications for service time are made electronically direct to the AAO and are accepted year-round. See the AAT Service Observing page for more details. Acknowledgements The AAO requests all publications based upon data allocated through the AAO include the following acknowledgement: Based [in part] on data obtained at Siding Spring Observatory [via program XXX]. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which the AAT stands, the Gamilaraay people, and pay our respects to elders past and present. How to Apply for AAT Time - the Basic Steps Instrument status and policies All ATAC applicants should check the ATAC Policies and Procedures , the latest Instrument Availability and recent Policy Announcements. If you require further clarification on any issue, then please contact the AAT Technical Secretary Lee Spitler ( aatts at aao.gov.au ). See Special Override Rules for proposals seeking time as an override on another program's time and the Long Term Program page for those seeking long term status. If at least half the proposers and the lead proposer are from European countries, they may apply for AAT time through the OPTICON program . Proposal content Full Technical Details, outlining how you derived your time estimates, observing constraints, and any special requests should be included in the scientific case (preferably under a separate section heading). Proposers should demonstrate that their team has the skills and experience with the required observing modes to effectively conduct the proposed observations. Proposals should be written so that the content and significance is understandable by astronomers with different backgrounds. If your proposal seeks time on two instruments, outline carefully the relative requirements of the different instrument set-ups, including the split in observing time between the instruments. If the observations are essential to the completion of a student's PhD thesis, then a full explanation must be given in the science case. No special consideration is given to proposals involving PhD students, except when attempting to schedule proposals near the scientific ranking cut-off, when some priority may be given. After including overheads (detector readout, calibrations and telescope slewing), observers are required to multiply their time request by 1.5 to account for bad weather. All applicants should be aware that it is the policy of the AAO that any backup project must use the same instrument as the main project. A list of the principal targets (field centres for AAOmega+2dF programs) should be prepared as a separate PDF document. The target list should contain target name, RA (h m s), Dec (d m s), target brightness, and priority. There is a 2-page limit for this target list PDF file. Other document formats will not be accepted. Proposal submission details Prepare your main proposal offline, including an abstract, target list, science case, and technical justification. The science case and technical justification together should be in PDF format, no more than three pages total, with two pages for the science case and one page for technical justification. Those three pages should include all references and figures, use 11pt font (or larger), and have at least 10mm margins. Numerical referencing should be used (e.g. ?as shown by [1]??, instead of ?as shown by Smith et al. (2017)? ). Colour figures are accepted. Other document formats will not be accepted. Submitting your proposal When your proposal details are ready, submit your application to ATAC through Lens, the AAT's online proposal submission system. As noted above, this is a user-account-based system and all investigators on a proposal must be registered. Contacting the ATAC Secretariat The Secretary, ATAC Australian Astronomical Observatory 105 Delhi Rd North Ryde, NSW 2113 Australia Phone: +61 (0)2 9372 4800 Email: Helen Woods (helen.woods at aao.gov.au) Lee Spitler AAT Technical Secretary Senior Lecturer Australian Astronomical Observatory & Macquarie University Sydney, Australia Phone: +61 (2) 9372 4895 (AAO) Phone: +61 (2) 9850 4161 (Macquarie) Email: aatts at aao.gov.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: