Standard call for proposals – semester 2026A

  • The deadline for submitting proposals for Spanish CAT night observing time in semester 2026A (GTC, TNG, WHT, NOT, Stella, LT, TCS, TTT, and Mercator) is Friday, 3 October 2025, at 22:59 Canarian local time (23:59 CEST, 21:59 UT). The call for collaborative Spanish–University of Florida (UF) proposals at the GTC (Spanish/UF Time, see below) is also open with the same deadline.

  • Each proposal within the Spanish CAT scheme must be led by a principal investigator (PI) affiliated with an institution based in Spain. Collaborators (co-Is) may be from institutions worldwide. For proposals with equal scientific merit, priority will be given to those with (1) a higher proportion of co-Is from Spanish institutions, and (2) a higher number of distinct Spanish institutions involved.

  • GTC Spanish/UF proposals can have either a Spanish or UF PI, and must include co-Is from both communities.

  • The start and end of the semester change with telescope as illustrated next:

    • Stella, TCS:  February – July.

    • NOT, TNG, Mercator:  April – September.

    • GTC:   March – August.

    • WHT:  May – October.

    • Liverpool (LT), TTT:   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 observing time with any telescope (except for the WHT) are accepted. See details below.

  • The following telescopes operate in visitor mode only: TNG, INT, TCS, NOT, and Mercator.  Proposals must include a scientifically meaningful backup program for poor weather, which will also be evaluated by the CAT. Teams of approved visitor-mode proposals must send an observer to perform the observations in full compliance with Observatory and telescope rules.

  • The following telescopes operate in queue/service mode: GTC, WHT, Stella, LT, and TTT. No backup program is required. The only exception is GTC, which also accepts visitor mode proposals. In such cases, the team must either include a backup program, following the same rules as for visitor-mode telescopes in this call, or explicitly state that any unused time will be returned to the Observatory for service observations.

  • Applicants should request total telescope time, including both on-source exposure time and overheads.

  • All proposals must be in English and must be submitted via http://cat.iac.es (see details at the bottom of this page), except for WEAVE (WHT) proposals, which must be submitted through the dedicated ING platform for the WEAVE instrument.

  • Proposals are evaluated at the next meeting of the CAT (November 2025). Recommendations will be made to the Director of the various Observatories/Telescopes by the end of December 2025.

Please, read carefully the following highlights and recommendations made for each telescope and for large programs. Pay special attention to the new (latex, word, pages) form for the preparation of proposals (except for the WHT).

 

HIGHLIGHTS

What follows are the highlights of all ten telescopes managed by the CAT.

 

GTC

Detailed information about the feature of GTC for this semester is available here.

  • OSIRIS, EMIR, HiPERCAM, and MEGARA are offered in this call.  MEGARA is offered on a shared-risk basis.
  • Available time for the Spanish community: about 650 h.
  • OSIRIS (optical imager and spectrograph) is available at the Cassegrain focus, equipped with the new monolithic, blue-sensitive CCD.  
    • OSIRIS “imaging” (broad-band, SHARDS filters),  and “spectroscopy” (long-slit, MOS) modes are offered.
    • Tunable filters and “frame transfer and fast photometry” are not offered.
    • Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS) observations will be included in the observing queue only if the proposal is ranked in bands A or B of the Spanish CAT final list. All GTC MOS proposals must specify in the technical section of the proposal whether the masks are already available or need to be fabricated. More information is available at http://www.gtc.iac.es/instruments/osiris+/osirisMOS.php.
    • Applicants requesting OSIRIS observations with the 0.63″ slit should note there is an approximate 0.1″ uncertainty in target positioning on the slit.
  • EMIR (near-infrared imager and spectrograph) is offered at the Nasmyth-A focus, equipped with the new H2RG detector. 
    • EMIR broad- and narrow-band imaging, long-slit and MOS spectroscopy are the offered observing modes.
    • The new detector overheads are as follows: 50% for imaging and 75% for spectroscopy. These overheads must be added to the on-source integration times. 
    • All applicants are recommended to read the instrument manual carefully.
    • The time needed to perform EMIR night-time calibrations (e.g., observations of telluric standard stars, wavelength calibration, etc.) will be charged to the observing programs. Therefore, applicants must include all the time needed to perform theses calibrations together with the time needed for the science observations in the total requested telescope time in their proposals.
  • MEGARA optical integral-field unit (IFU) is offered on a shared-risk basis. A technical intervention on MEGARA is expected to happen in the following months.
  • HiPERCAM optical imager is now permanently installed at the new Folded-CASS G focal station. It provides high-speed imaging capability in 5 channels (u’, g’, r’, i’, z’) simultaneously. Although offered to the GTC community, HiPERCAM is a visitor instrument (PI. Vik D hillon).
    • There is a new COMPO component useful for differential photometry.
    • HiPERCAM can use narrow-band filters if specifically requested in the proposal. This non-standard configuration is only available for proposals ranked in band A.
    • HiPERCAM can use a diffuser to stabilize the point-spread function during observations. This is a non-standard configuration and will only be mounted for A-band proposals that specifically request it.
    • HiPERCAM narrow-band filters and the diffuser are not offered for Large Programs, Filler and ToO proposals for scheduling issues.
  • For the calculation of observing overheads, the GTC Observatory strongly recommends using the Phase 2 simulator. 
  • The Observatory encourages Visitor Mode requests when beneficial for the science programs. Since 2020B, a “flexitime” option has improved efficiency of visitor observations. Applicants must select “Visitor mode” in the proposal form. Only A- and B-band proposals will be granted actual visitor astronomers; C-band visitor requests will be queued but not treated as visitor observations.
  • GTC visitor mode proposals: the team must either include a backup program, following the same rules as for visitor-mode telescopes in this call, or explicitly state that any unused time will be returned to the Observatory for service observations.
  • Target-of-opportunity (ToO) proposals are accepted for service observations.
    • ToO proposals must be submitted as regular programs (please review the ToO policy at GTC and the GTC ToO page for additional details).
    • Large programs cannot include ToO observations.
    • ToO regular programs can request HiPERCAM observations without narrow-band filters and the diffuser.
    • ToO proposals will be recommended with appropriate priority only if ranked in bands A or B; those in band C will not be approved. ToO proposals do not carry over to the next semester.
  • For all approved proposals (bands A, B, C, and filler), GTC Phase 2 information must be submitted by the deadline corresponding to the semester of acceptance.
  • Large programs requesting OSIRIS, and/or EMIR, and/or HiPERCAM, and/or MEGARA instruments are accepted. MEGARA is offered on a shared-risk basis. Observing modes offered for Large programs are: MEGARA (IFU), OSIRIS (imaging and long-slit spectroscopy), EMIR (imaging and long-slit spectroscopy), HiPERCAM (without narrow-band filters and the diffuser). These programs must:
    • have the potential to lead to a major advance in a specific field of astrophysics,
    • require a total minimum of 100 h of GTC that can be distributed over 2 to a maximum of 4 semesters, with a limitation of a maximum of 75 h per semester,
    • have a PI from any institute in Spanish soil (because the observing time is deduced from the Spanish CAT share),
    • comply with the conditions, particularly those regarding dark, gray, and bright night time, described here, and
    • not contain Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) observations.
  • SPANISH/UF TIME: Up to 1.25% of the GTC observing time is reserved for collaborative proposals between Spanish and University of Florida astronomers. To send proposals under this agreement, select the Special Agreement“Spanish/UF Time” in the CAT application tool. 

  • After publication of the GTC data, all PIs will be contacted by the CAB, CSIC-INTA, archive staff and invited to send their reduced data products for public release to the astronomical community through the GTC archive.

  • The Observatory announces that the R. A. ranges 0 – 2 h and 10 – 14 h are highly over-subscribed, whereas the R. A. interval 20 – 23  h and bright moon time are generally less demanded. Programs that can use bright moon time and/or have targets with R. A. 20 – 23 h will have higher probability of being executed at the telescope.
  • Starting in semester 2019A, all proposals (including ToO) will be ranked in bands A, B, C, and filler. Principal Investigators of A-, B-, and C-ranked proposals and filler projects must complete GTC Phase 2 of ALL approved observations in due time. The bands assigned to each proposal are defined as follows:
    • A-band proposals have very high priority and all possible efforts will be made to execute all of the required/approved observations in the requested semester. If for any reason, A-band proposals remain unfinished by the end of the corresponding semester, the existing GTC Phase 2 will be granted an extended life-time of two additional semesters, or until its completion, whichever comes first. Unfinished A-band proposals do not have to be re-submitted in the following two semesters because of their carry-over status. Approximately one quarter (according to the CAT ranking) of the total amount of GTC available observing time falls in this band.
    • B-band proposals will be executed on a best-effort basis during the requested semester, and do not have a carry-over status. Approximately three quarters (according to the CAT ranking) of the total amount of GTC available observing time falls in this band. 
    • C-band proposals will be executed in extraordinary cases when no A- or B-band objects are available but the good weather conditions permit observations during the requested semester. C-band proposals do have very little opportunity of execution until completion of the project, yet they are included in the GTC observing queue. 
    • Filler proposals, see below.

PROTECTED OBJECTS. Due to the execution of Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) of various instrumental teams, all applicants are kindly requested to check the list of protected objects here (follow the links to the corresponding instrument). Protected objects cannot be proposed for observation by other users, unless an instrumental setup different to that of the GTO is required.

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.). Filler proposals can request common-user instruments (OSIRIS, EMIR, MEGARA, HiPERCAM) with simple instrumental configurations (filler proposals should not request complex observations that demand non-standard instrumental modes). These programs must contain targets spanning a wide range in right ascension (R. A.). Filler proposals will only be executed if the observing conditions do not permit observations of proposals in A-, B-, or C-bands. 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 .
  • There is a scientific gain even if only a small fraction of the requested observations are executed.
  • A list of targets with a broad R.A. coverage is provided or,  if only few targets are included, they must have good visibility during the semester.
  • Filler proposals cannot contain Target of Opportunity (ToO) targets.

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

GTC filler and ToO proposals must be identified by ticking the “filler” or “ToO” box in the proposal submission tool http://cat.iac.es.

 

TNG 

Offered instruments (GIANO-B, HARPS-N, NICS, DOLORES, GIARPS = GIANO-B+HARPS-N) are summarized here.

  • The polarimetric mode with DOLORES will be unavailable during semester 2026A.
  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community: approximately 31 n.
  • The execution of the observations related to the long-term program A50TAC_19, “Follow-up of the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources at TNG during O4b” may have a significant impact on the schedule of the semester 2026A.
  • Monitoring mode is subjected to severe limitations at TNG. The schedule is dominated by long blocks of full-nights belonging to  Large Programs dedicated to Exoplanetary Science. Proposals requesting high frequency monitoring of exoplanets or other targets should clearly specify the ideal and the minimum rate needed to get the expected scientific results. In any case, too dense cadence (like 1 visit per week or less) will be probably considered not feasible due to scheduling issues. Moreover, to optimize the telescope observing time and scientific return in exoplanets observations, time-sharing (TS) with Large Programs is necessary.
  • Starting from the previous semester 2025B, new rules on the time-sharing among programs of exoplanetary science are in force. Researchers who would like to submit a proposal on exoplanetary science needing monitoring of radial velocities over a wide range of dates, should take into account the following considerations:
    • There are several Large Programs (LPs) on exoplanetary science ongoing at the TNG, with granted time until AOT57 (or 2028A). To optimize the scientific return for their science goals, the two main scientific groups with approved LPs (HARPS-N and GAPS collaborations) already agreed on sharing the observing time at the telescope.  
    • Exoplanetary science (with HARPS-N and/or GIANO-B) is not the only observing mode of the TNG. Other science cases with different instruments have been approved which means that dense monitoring with frequent observations every few days is not possible, even in case of time-sharing (TS). TS is only available when exoplanetary science programs are scheduled and even so, on a best effort basis.
    • At the earliest time, or at least one week before the closure of a new call for Observing time (TAC, CAT, ITP, ORP), the researchers who know that their science goal could only be attained with TS should properly fill the form available at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeViKzSiXdWL_S8boJvvLL55-fHj0V2eTz09vjCeGEsj4kQ4w/viewform
    • The form will only be available on-line until one week before the deadline of the call. Fail to submit the compiled form in due time will imply that the program is technically unfeasible.
    • The final acceptance of the TS by the other groups with already approved time is subjected to the following constraints:
      • Programs requesting to join the TS group must have scientific goals that do not overlap with those of existing TS group members. Applicants in such cases may still submit their proposals to the Spanish CAT call but should refrain from requesting inclusion in the TS group.  
      • The target list should not encompass targets for which one of the programs in the TS has already expressed interest. In case of a strong and justified interest on the same target, a spirit of collaboration is encouraged and a policy on the use and publication of the data should be agreed before submitting the proposal. The time allocation committees judging the proposal should be informed of the possible conflict due to mutual interest and know in advance if the groups already       agreed on collaborating.
      • The scheduling of the targets of the new proposal will be organized on a best effort basis and in any case will not be detrimental for other programs already in the TS. Asking for TS is accepting the scheduling of the targets organized by one of the two main groups.
      • PIs of the proposal accept to provide observers for the scheduled nights who: [1] will follow the scheduled observations from the schedulers of the two main groups (HARPS-N Collaboration and GAPS) and [2] will accept that the observing shift could be larger than the assigned time to their proposal (i.e. assigned 1 night to the proposal, but could be observing for 3 consecutive nights).
      • PIs of the proposal accept that the calculated percentage of shared time will be based on the allocated time by the TAC and that the bad weather loss will be equally distributed with the same percentage.
      • Time Constraint observations (transits) are typically not included in the TS, however the hours of the night outside the transit could be used for TS.    
      • PIs and observers of programs within the TS will respect a no disclosure of the data from other programs.
    • Proposals that fail to demonstrate that an agreement of TS has been reached will be considered as technically unfeasible by the TNG staff
  • There are no protected targets.

 

WHT

Detailed information provided by the ING Observatory can be found in the ING call for proposals. All potential applicants must become familiar with the series of changes in instrument availability and of observing time at the WHT and INT driven by the arrival of new survey instruments. The changes are summarized here. 

  • Offered instrument: WEAVE large integral-field unit (LIFU) in low- and high-resolution modes.
  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community: approximately 120 h.
  • Target of Opportunity (ToO) proposals are accepted in this call for proposals. Only band-A ToO proposals are likely to be attempted. ING expects to execute at most one trigger per night, and any requests will be handled on a first come, first served basis. The Observing Blocks (OBs) will be prepared by ING following an activation trigger from the proposing team. The observing strategy at execution must match what was requested and approved in the proposal, and triggers must not exceed the allocated time. At present, ING supports ‘next day’ triggers: for an event scheduled to be observed on a given night, the trigger must be received by the Observatory no later than 12:00 noon on the preceding day. ING will strive to execute ToO programs on a shorter timescale on a best-effort basis.
  • All WEAVE open-time observations in this semester will be queue-driven and will be done in service mode, sharing nights with the WEAVE surveys. ING welcomes astronomers from the teams of successful PIs being at the telescope during WEAVE observing nights, but note that there’s little chance of their own observations being carried out during their visit. Such visits should be organised well in advance in consultation with ING.
  • WEAVE open-time data will be processed with the standard WEAVE pipelines (CPS at CASU, APS at IAC). All raw and processed data will be made available to the PI teams through the WEAVE archive.
  • Following the WEAVE Data Policy agreed between ING and the WEAVE Surveys, prospective PIs should note that the surveys do not have reserved targets, or reserved science topics. However, any data which preempt or replicate survey data will be made available immediately to archive users in the same way as WEAVE survey data, and will be assigned a propietary period corresponding to survey data.

WEAVE open-time proposals must be submitted via the ING platform. In the ING form, you must select “Spain” country. Please, read carefully all of the instructions given for WEAVE Open-Time programs before submitting your proposals.

 

NOT

Offered common-user instruments (ALFOSC, StanCam, NOTCam, and FIES) and non-common user instruments are listed here. Updates with respect to previous semesters are as follows:

  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community is: approximately 31 nights.
  • A set of two holographic diffuser are available to do high-precision photometry with ALFOSC. The diffuser effectively scrambled the incoming light, providing a more constant and optimal (`top-head’) shape, with minimal light loss, significantly reducing any systematic effects in the photometry. The diffusers provides a very stable stellar image with a width (~FWHM) of 5 and 7 arcsec, respectively. Read here for more information.
  • The SOFIN high-resolution Echelle spectrograph is again available. It is offered only to do circular spectro-polarimetry with the medium-resolution (R~80,000) camera. SOFIN is not a common-user instrument: only limited support is provided, and explicit approval for a proposal should be obtained.
  • MOSCA instrument is not offered.

 

STELLA

The instruments WiFSIP and SES are offered.

The telescope control software has been upgraded to allow for non-sidereal tracking and guiding for solar-system observations with WiFSIP/Stella-1.

Available telescope time for the Spanish community is: ~140 h with WiFSIP and ~140 h with SES.

 

LIverpool Telescope (LT)

The offered instruments for 2026A are IO:O, RISE, SPRAT, MOPTOP, and LIRIC. Highlights are the following:

  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community is: 150 h (band A+B) + 50 h (band C).
  • A new instrument, LIRIC, is available since 2024B. It replaces the now-decommissioned IO:I camera. Please, check the LIRIC web site for recent up-to-date information on capabilities. Applicants should feel free to contact Chris Copperwheat for further information.
  • In addition to applying for telescope time through the CAT twice-yearly process, LT now also allows observers to apply for PriorityZ time via: http://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/PropInst/PriorityZ
    PriorityZ time is defined as time when there is no A, B or C-ranked science group available for the scheduling software to pick, and so the telescope would otherwise sit idle. This can occur during periods of poor seeing during full moon, or during times of instrument failure. We estimate approximately 10-15 hours of such time are available per month, although this can of course vary significantly. PriorityZ time is well-suited to long-term proposals of bright targets with no significant time constraints. We would typically expect to approve a PriorityZ proposal for a period of two years. Observers can apply via the web form available at the above link, and proposals will be assessed internally by LT staff. Proposals can be submitted at any time.
  • Check the restrictions and guidance notes for the Liverpool Telescope.

 

Mercator Telescope

Offered instruments (HERMES) can be found at Mercator. Instrument MAIA is not offered.
  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community is: 29 nights.
  • It is strongly recommended to request long runs and full nights since the Observatory will reduce the number of introduction due to limited local man/womanpower.
  • The low-resolution, high stability mode of HERMES is no longer available.
  • The high-resolution mode is more efficient, and a double mode in which the object’s spectrum is interleaved with a simultaneous ThArNe exposure is offered. The double mode is intended only for radial velocity work : the background cannot be corrected so if you are interested in the extracted 1D spectrum, you cannot use this mode.
  • The exposure time calculator on the web has been updated accordingly with respect to the efficiency of HERMES.
  • A new guiding mode on the spectrographic telescope is introduced, which allows now guiding in close visual binaries separated by at least 3 arcsec (the spectrograph’s entrance pinhole diameter). This works for faint companions as well.
  • There is a remote observing system, although CAT observers may find it more useful to perform the observations at the Observatory.
  • 2022 was a very successful year for the Mercator telescope and 36 refereed publications were published based on Mercator data. A wide spread of stellar astrophysical themes are covered and, while HERMES is not in vacuum, also exoplanet science is performed. This can be appreciated on http://www.mercator.iac.es/publications/2022/. Please, let the team know if you have more publications based on Mercator data so that they can keep track of the science output of Mercator (by email to mercator@kuleuven.be or saskia.prins@kuleuven.be).

 

Telescopio Carlos Sánchez (TCS)

Offered instruments on the TCS are MuSCAT2 and FastCAM.
  • About 90 nights are offered to the CAT community. 
  • Target of Opportunities proposals are accepted since 2024B.
  • Technical information about the instruments and their pipelines are given at the MuSCAT2 and FastCAM webpages.

 

Two-meter Twin Telescope (TTT)

Offered imaging instruments on two 80-cm telescopes TTT1 (MPC Y65) and TTT2 (MPC Y66) are the following:

  • sCMOS QHY411: SDSS filters u’, g’, r’, i’, zs  (FOV 33′ x 25′ , 0.14 arcsec/pix) on the TTT1;
  • sCMOS QHY600: SDSS filters Lum, g’, r’, i’, zs, Ha, OIII (FOV 21’ x 14’, 0.14 arcsec/pix) on the TTT2.

Highlights:

  • The Observatory offers observing time on a shared-risk basis.
  • Available telescope time for the Spanish community is: ~511 h.
  • Service mode observations (no visitors). 
  • Exposure time calculator is available.
  • On this link there is a video indicating how to prepare phase 2 for approved programs.
  • This is the link for the preparation of phase 2 (called DTO using TTT terminology).

 

Large programs

Large programs are expected to accommodate projects that require long-term or synoptic coverage, and large-size projects. They must satisfy these four requirements: 

  • involve novel ideas, opportunities for great advance, or legacy programs, 
  • span between two and four semesters, 
  • publicly release their final high-level products in an appropriate format, and 
  • be led by a Spanish institution (a large fraction of the team – co-Is – should be affiliated to a Spanish institution).

Considering the time allocated to on-going large-programs, in 2026A the following time is available for Large Programs:

  • TNG:  14 n per semester (up to four semesters).
  • WHT: no large programs are accepted in 2026A.
  • INT: no large programs are accepted in 2026A.
  • NOT:  10 nights per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • Mercator: 17 nights per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • Liverpool: 90 h per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • Stella-SES: 120 h per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • Stella-WiFSIP: 80 h per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • TCS: 30 n per semester (up to 4 semesters).
  • TTT: 100 h per semester and per unit (up to 4 semesters).
  • GTC: These projects should require a total minimum of 100 hours that can be distributed over up to four semesters, with a limitation of  75 h per semester. These 75 hours per semester must be split into dark, grey and bright time as follows: 50 h dark, 5 h grey, 20 h bright.  Given these limits, a GTC Large program can request up to a total of 200 hours of dark time equally distributed over 4 semesters, 20 hours in grey time, and 80 hours with bright moon. Execution of a GTC-LP will be preferentially done in service/queue mode.  Requests to conduct it (partially or completely) in visitor mode will be considered if it significantly improves the efficiency of the proposed observations. Note, however, that payback for bad weather or technical failure in visitor mode will no be offered. As the observing time is deduced from the CAT share, only GTC Large Program applications with PIs and a large part of team from Spanish institutions will be accepted.

All large programs will be evaluated by the CAT and advised by external expert referees, based on the above criteria. Yearly progress reports are expected, and a final report to the CAT is due at the end of the project.  Raw data from long-term programs will follow the same proprietary period as regular proposals. Up to 66% of the time distributed by the CAT on the Liverpool (LT), Mercator, STELLA, TCS, TTT, and INT, up to 33% of the time on NOT and TNG, and up to 15% of the time on the WHT may be assigned to large programs.

How to submit

  • WEAVE proposals on the WHT. Applicants must use the ING platform and select Spain country. Page/word limits and instructions are given on the electronic form.
  • For all other telescopes (GTC, TNG, NOT, LT, Mercator, Stella, TTT, TCS, INT), all applicants must use the night time CAT application tool at http://cat.iac.es, A simple manual to learn how to deal with this CAT application is available in this pdf document. Please, select properly the Committee to which you will submit your proposal: Spanish CAT, Spanish/UF, TAC China, TAC Florida, or TAC Mexico. 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.

ALL proposals must be written in English. 

Applicants must ensure that their proposals comply with the required page limits and layout indicated in the forms. If your proposal is a ToO and/or Large Program proposal, or a filler program (GRC), this must be clearly identified by ticking the corresponding labels on http://cat.iac.es.

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, the SpanishCAT 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

UPDATED on 6 Sep 2025

Contact: catiac at iac.es