This is a special call for GTC proposals for Spanish CAT night observing time in semester 2021A. Proposal submission deadline is Sunday, February 28th, 2021, at 22:59 h Canarian time or 23:59 h CET.
This special call for GTC proposals is driven by the extended availability of OSIRIS and HORuS for science observations before the removal of OSIRIS in August 2021. The following highlights are applicable to this special call for GTC proposals.
- All proposals within the Spanish CAT scheme must be led by a principal investigator (PI) affiliated to an Institution in Spanish soil.
- Offered instruments:
- OSIRIS: “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 bands A and B of the Spanish CAT final list. However, any proposal in band C that has the MOS masks already fabricated from previous semesters will be also included in the observing queue (still in band C). Applicants must indicate whether their MOS masks are to be fabricated or are available from previous semesters (there is a box named “masks” in the submission tool http://cat.iac.es).
- HORuS: high resolution spectrograph is offered as a visiting instrument. Should you be interested in HORuS observations, it is recommended that you contact the PI of the instrument (Carlos Allende) before submitting your proposal.
- A total of 230 h of GTC observing time is offered to the Spanish community. This will serve to fill mostly dark time not demanded by CAT proposals already approved for other GTC instruments in the same semester 2021A.
- Offered time will be allocated between April 1st and July 31st, 2021. Applicants must provide suitable targets with Right Ascension coordinates appropriate for this 4-month observing window.
- No large programs are offered.
- No carry-over status will be applied to A-band proposals.
- No “filler” proposals are accepted.
- Only queue-scheduled mode observations are accepted (i.e., no visitor mode is offered in this special call for GTC proposals).
- Guaranteed Time Observations of the OSIRIS and HORuS teams have protected targets. For details about the protected targets, please see http://www.gtc.iac.es/instruments/, following the links for the corresponding instrument.
- For the calculation of overheads, the GTC Observatory strongly recommends the use of the following Phase 2 simulator.
- Target-of-opportunity (ToO) proposals are accepted (read carefully the ToO policy at GTC and as well as the GTC ToO page for further details). ToO proposals will be recommended with their corresponding priority whenever they fall in bands A and B of the ranked proposal list. ToO proposals in band C will not be approved. ToO proposals do not have carry-over status.
- For all approved proposals (bands A, B, C), GTC Phase 2 information must be submitted to the GTC at the deadline corresponding to the semester in which the proposal is accepted.
Further details about this special call for GTC proposals in semester 2021A can be found here.
How to submit
Applicants must ensure that their proposals comply with the required page limits and layout indicated below. ALL proposals must be written in English. To send proposals, use the night time CAT application tool at http://cat.iac.es. A simple manual to learn how to deal with this application is available in this pdf document. To submit a proposal, the PI and co-Is need to be registered. If you are already registered but you do not remember your password, please do NOT register twice (in order to avoid confusions for statistical purposes). You can find instructions about how to reset your password in the same webpage or contact the CAT for additional help.
THERE IS A NEW FORM to build the scientific case of the CAT proposals. All applicants of standard and large proposals are kindly requested to use this new form, which is available here (a “tar” file will be downloaded; read the README file first). Please note that applications forms are different for LARGE (long-term) and REGULAR programs. Note also that the time request in the on-line application tool has changed, as one should now specify the time requested for each semester by creating as many “Observations” as needed.
In the evaluation of proposals, CAT will take into account the publications derived from previous observations with the CAT telescopes. Therefore, in the BIBCodes menu of the application tool, remember to update the fields Comment and Bibliographic code for all proposals approved in the last two years.
Before the deadline expires, please check that the uploaded pdf file (created with the new form) contain the latest version of your proposal, and that it prints correctly. No replacement or updating of the proposal content will be made after the deadline, and those proposals which do not correctly print out or lack relevant sections will be automatically withdrawn from the evaluation process. Those proposals where the font size (12pt) has been reduced or the text of the scientific justification exceeds limitations (one page for common/regular proposals and two pages for large programmes) will also be withdrawn. Figures and Tables cited in the scientific justification should fit a maximum of one page (normal proposals) and two pages (large programs). It is advised to follow the instructions described at http://cat.iac.es/faces/ayuda/pdf_latex.jsf
Page updated on 4 Feb 2021.