Call for proposals – semester 2018A

• We recall that every proposal within the Spanish CAT scheme must be led by a principal  investigator (PI) affiliated to a Spanish Institution. GTC Spanish/Mex proposals can have either a Spanish or Mexican PI, and must include co-Investigators (co-Is) from both communities (see below).

• The start and end of the semester change with telescope as illustrated next:
  • WHT, INT, Stella:   February – July.
  • NOT, TNG, Mercator:   April – September. 
  • GTC:   March – August. 
  • Liverpool (LT):   January – August (a two-month overlap period is adopted at the start and end of each semester, when proposals from both semesters may be observed in order to reduce problems with under-filled observations queues).

• Large programs requesting the EMIR instrument are accepted for GTC in semester 2018A. Large program proposals extending over two semesters (2017B and 2018A) are accepted for WHT and INT (see below for details). Large program proposals extending up to four semesters (2018A through 2019B) with TNG, NOT, Mercator, and/or Stella can be submitted. See below.

Please, read carefully the following information and recommendations made for each telescope and for large programs. There are changes with respect to previous calls for proposals. Pay special attention to the new (latex, word, pages) form for the preparation of proposals.

To submit proposals, see “how to submit” at the end of this document.

GTC

Detailed information about the feature of GTC for this semester can be found on the GTC call for proposals. A short summary is provided next:

• In semester 2018A, Large Programs requiring observations with EMIR are offered only to Principal Investigators from Spanish institutions. See here for additional information on GTC Large Programs. 
• OSIRIS, EMIR, and HiPERCAM are offered in this call. CanariCam and CIRCE are no longer offered. 
• EMIR broad- and narrow-band imaging and long-slit spectroscopy are offered. All applicants are recommended to use this tool (which does not include overheads) to optimize the observing time of EMIR targets. For the calculation of overheads, the Observatory strongly recommends the use of the following Phase 2 simulator.
• OSIRIS modes “imaging” (broad-band, SHARDS filters, tunable filters),  “spectroscopy” (long-slit, MOS), and “frame transfer and fast photometry” are offered. Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS) observations will be part of the observing queue only if the proposals are ranked in the top half (first and second quartiles) of the Spanish CAT final list. However, any proposal in the third and fourth quartiles that has the MOS masks already fabricated from previous semesters will be also included in the observing queue. Applicants must indicate whether their MOS masks are to be fabricated or are available from previous semesters. For overheads related to the various observing modes, see the GTC document.
• HiPERCAM is a high-speed, multi-band imager and a new GTC visitor instrument (Principal Investigator Vik Dhillon). It is offered on a shared-risk basis to the community quite likely by the beginning of the semester: March – May 2018.
• Visitor programs are welcome, but will only be admitted whenever they fall in the top half of the ranked proposal list. The applicants must clearly indicate they are applying for visitor mode. A backup program (in visitor mode) should be defined in the case the observing conditions for the main program are not met.
• Target-of-opportunity proposals are accepted (see here for further details). Target-of-opportunity proposals will be admitted whenever they fall in the top half of the ranked proposal list.
• Approved CAT proposals ranked in the first quartile, will be granted an extended life-time of three semesters, or until their completion, whichever comes first. Note that all phase II information must be submitted to the GTC at the deadline corresponding to the semester in which the proposal is accepted.

FILLER PROPOSALS: In order to have an efficient queue-scheduled observations scheme for the GTC, it is useful to have a set of “filler” programs that can be executed under adverse observing conditions (bad seeing, poor sky transmission, etc.) and with targets spanning a wide range in right ascension (RA). Proposers may request filler status for their program, and during the proposal selection process CAT will evaluate their suitability for this category. Such proposals can request a large number of observing hours. In order to be considered as filler proposals they must fulfil the following requirements:

• Their observing requirements should be very relaxed, i.e. little or no restrictions on seeing or cloud coverage. 
• The chosen observing mode should be a frequently used mode, specifically broad/narrow-band imaging and long-slit spectroscopy for OSIRIS, and broad-band imaging for EMIR.
• There is a scientific gain even if only a small fraction of the requested observations are executed.
• A list of targets with a broad RA coverage is provided or,  if only few targets are included, they must have good visibility during the semester.

Note that filler proposals have generally been highly successful in the last semesters.

SPANISH/MEX TIME: Up to 2.5% of the GTC observing time is reserved for collaborative proposals between Spanish and Mexican astronomers. To send proposals under this agreement, select the Special Agreement“Spanish/Méx Time” in the CAT application tool.