When?

A call for proposals for Semester 2012A has been issued by the Gemini Observatory. The Call for Proposals can be viewed at: CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The deadline for the receipt of Canadian proposals is:

Friday September 30 2011, 4 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time)

Note that not all Gemini partners have the same deadline and those involved in joint proposals need to submit their proposals by the PI's country's deadline.

In 2012A Canada has access to 199 hours on Gemini North and 141 hours on Gemini South.

What?

 

All instruments are offered in queue and classical mode, except for Laser Guide Star AO which is queue mode only. The instruments available on Gemini-North are GMOS-N, GNIRS, NIRI (imaging only), NIFS, Altair and Michelle; and on Gemini-South are GMOS-S, NICI, and T-ReCS. Please consult the target accessibility page for imortant information converning the RA restrictions for each instrument.

To see more details about each of the instruments available for 2012A please see the a href="http://www.gemini.edu/sciops/observing-gemini/2012a-call-proposals">Gemini Call for Proposals.

A separate Call is expected to be made in January 2012 for Science Verification proposals for Flamingos-2 and GSAOI.

What's new in 2012A

• WARNING: if you have re-ingested in PIT an old proposal that was submitted at a previous semester, when you navigate to the 'SUBMIT' tab it will indicate that "the proposal has been submitted successfully". However this is NOT the case. You must click "Reset" (in the Submit tab, lower right corner), and then when you are ready to submit, click 'Submit' and you should see a dialog box appearing, assigning a number to the proposal like GCa/20012A-#.
• Installation of the Hamamatsu CCDs in GMOS-N has been delayed. As an interim solution Gemini has purchased deep depletion devices from E2V which are expected to be installed in Oct-Nov 2011. These CCDs have improved sensitivity in the blue and the red compared to the current ones, have extended sensitivity to 9800A and have much less fringing. While we expect the e2vDD CCDs to be available for 2012A, investigators should use the current EEV CCDs characteristics to define their investigation, and add a bried statement describing how the program will change if the e2vDD devices are used instead.
• Target accessibility limits will be imposed, so as not to bias the queue at the start or end of the semester. Targets for 2012A for Gemini-North should be limited to 4 < RA < 1 and -37 < Dec < +90, and for Gemini-South 5 < RA < 2 and -90 < Dec < +28. Please see additional constraints for MOS programs, long programs or programs with strict timing, LGS, NICI and T-Recs.
• There will be no Gemini-Keck exchange time offered for semester 2012A.
• There will be 4 to 8 classical nights available on Subaru. However, due to the cooling system incident, the availability of Suprime-Cam and the Cassegrain instruments is limited. PLease view the full call for proposals for details. The exact dates are yet to be determined, and will be scheduled to accommodate the Hyper Suprime Cam commissioning. Please make integer nights proposals only.

Other Things to Note for 2012A

• Laser Guide Star (LGS) observations must request good conditions (Cloud cover = 50%, Image quality = 70%). Faint tip-tilt stars will also require darker skies: 17.5 < R < 18 needs SB = 80%, 18 < R < 18.5 needs SB = 50%. Only LGS programs ranked in bands 1 and 2 will be recommended by the ITAC.
• Since 20011B all proposals for Rapid Target of Opportunity (RToO) followup must submit a separate proposal for Standard Target of Opportunity follow-up (SToO) in conditions better than SB/CC/IQ=Any, if such followup is planned.
• Poor weather and Director's Discretionary Time proposals can now be submitted at any time via PIT directly to Gemini (bypassing CTAC). Please continue to use the 11B PIT for these.
• Since 2011B, fewer queue proposals are being scheduled in Band 3 (to limit the number of Band 3 PIs having to fill their Phase2s for no returns and the number of Band 3 programs not being observed or only very partially observed). The queue time will be filled to 80% of the advertised time, with the boundaries for Band 1 at roughly 30%, Band 2 60% and Band 3 80% of the available queue time. A new Cloud Cover constraint of CC80 has been defined, corresponding to 1 magnitude of extinction, or 40% transmission.
• The minimum request for classical observing programs has been lowered from 3 nights to a 1 night minimum. The minimum time block that can be requested in queue-mode is no longer limited to 1 hour minimum
• On the longer term, please note that in 2012B or 2013A NICI is expected to be replaced by GPI. It is likely that T-ReCs may no longer be offered at Gemini-South, and NIRI is aging and is expected not to be offered after 2012B or possibly earlier if it fails. Users are invited to share with us their opinions on the long term instrument plan by consulting page 9 of the Gemini Science Committee Report, and to forward their comments to the CGO.

PIT now includes a "Band 3" tab that must be completed for programs wishing consideration in Band 3, where proposers can specify how their program can be optimized for execution in Band 3 (should it be ranked in Band 3 by CanTAC), allowing them to specify a worse set of observing conditions, minimum useful science time and other considerations. Please see the Band 3 considerations page for Band 3 advice. Applicants are encouraged to think carefully about the "minimum time" requested for their program, as this can be a critical factor when deciding if a proposal does or does not get time.

Proposals requesting classical time must specify the observing conditions required to achieve their science. If these observing conditions constraints are restrictive, a backup program must be described which can use poorer conditions. During a classical observing run, if conditions are worse than those required by the main or alternate classical program, the time will be used for queue observations. In this case, the classical time will not be re-scheduled, but the partner responsible for the classical program is not charged for time spent executing the queue. Classical runs can now be requested for 1 night.

PIT no longer allows for allocation of resources from more than one telescope. If submitting a proposal using instruments at both Gemini North and Gemini South, including GMOS, please submit two (2) proposals, one for targets that would be observed from Gemini North and the other for targets that would be observed from Gemini South.

For Joint Proposals, PIT will automatically submit your joint proposal to all the identified partners so only a single submission is required. See the PIT Cookbook on the Gemini web site for more details including how to reset the submission status if re-using a (single or joint) proposal from previous semesters.

Please be sure to fill out the observing resources part of your proposal completely, e.g., filters and grisms required.

How?

Canadian astronomers must use the Gemini Observatory Phase I Tool (PIT) to prepare and submit their proposals. PIT does not support LaTeX, so applicants should not include LaTeX commands in their proposals.

The new version of PIT for Semester 2012A must be downloaded from the PIT installation site. The previous version of PIT must not be used, and should be uninstalled before installing the latest version. Users will submit their finalized proposals from PIT which are sent electronically to NRC-HIA. The CGO will be in charge of the technical assessment of the proposals, which will then be reviewed and ranked by CTAC.

All data will be subject to the normal Gemini proprietary period of 18 months.

Proposal Parameters

Words limits will now be imposed by PIT for all partners, these limits are:

• abstract: up to 200 words
• scientific justification: up to 1000 words (excluding references, see below).
• technical justification: up to 1000 words
• figures: a maximum of three figures in JPEG, GIF or PDF format
• NO Postscript or Encapsulated Postscript are allowed (use for example, 'convert' or 'ps2pdf' on linux to convert them to pdf)
• references: may be provided as an attachment, in a simple ASCII file