Applying for Time on the JCMT

The last proposal Deadline was for SCUBA-2 Shared-Risks observing and closed on 09 November 2009

The next regular Call - for Semester 10B - will likely occur on 15 February 2010. This document aims to provide technical assistance in the preparation and submission of the proposal. For news about the latest Call, follow the link above - if there is one !.

The usual deadlines for proposals are

• 15 March for semester B (August through January), and
• 15 September for semester A (February through July).

Check these links for available instrumentation and observing modes.

JCMT Proposal Submission Procedure

Proposals are submitted to -- and received at -- JCMT via the NorthStar proposal submission tool. Northstar is fully web-based (check-out the new Help-page) and can be accessed using most browsers at:

• NB: NorthStar at the JCMT requires a secure connection, acheived using public key certificates. The certificates used by the JAC are 'self-signed' and may cause a security exception upon initial connection. This is nothing to worry about. You can either add the following file as a trusted certificate authority in your browser :
  http://ftp.jach.hawaii.edu/JAC_CA.crt or, if you are using FireFox 3+, you can add a security exception. Other browsers may just ask whether or not you want to accept the connection. You are always advised to check the details of the certificate carefully. If you have any queries please contact us.

Previously registered users will be able to login using their old usernames and passwords. New accounts can be created from the login page. Details on this and other aspects of the application are available at the new Help-page as well as the 'Help' links available within almost every page of the Northstar application. Please take care with your email address: the initial password will be sent to it and it will be used as a general identifier throughout the tool.

WE URGENTLY ADVISE ALL FIRST-TIME USERS TO CAREFULLY READ THE 'READ ME FIRST' SECTION AS WELL AS THE 'HELP' ON EACH PAGE, WHICH MAY GIVE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO THE JCMT OR TO THE PAGE/POP-UP.

A more graphical guide through the application process is available in our Help pages, but a textual summary of some of the features of the application follows:

• Saving an Intermediate version can be done at any time during the process. We recommend that proposers use the 'Save and Continue' option frequently while working on the proposal to avoid loss of work due to unexpected connection problems. At any time 'Save and Exit' can be used so that one can continue the proposal at another time or to allow one to switch to another proposal.  It is also possible to view the "complete" proposal pdf file at any stage with the 'Save and Preview' option.
• Submission and Retraction: once finished, the proposal can be officially submitted (i.e. 'Save and Submit'). At that time a project id will be assigned and a confirmation message will be sent.  Any submitted proposal can be retracted before the deadline. A retracted proposal may be modified and re-submitted (before the deadline), or deleted; in either case, no previous versions of a retracted proposal will ever be admitted for review.
• the tool supports assigning different roles to the co-applicants. The 'Contact author' is the main person responsible for the proposal. 'Active participants' receive an invitation notification and can also View and Edit the proposal (after creating an account using the email address used in the invitation).  'Non-active participants' will receive a notification and can View the proposal after submission. Official PI status can be given to any of the applicants and roles can be modified at will.
• When collaborating on a proposal, locks will be put in place to avoid concurrent access. However, an applicant can opt to ignore the lock and usurp control with the associated loss of updates from the earlier user. Regulating team access is left to the responsibility of the team members.
• The Proposal section of the tool consist of 4 main tab pages.  Navigate between these by clicking on the desired tab rather than the Back/Forward button of the browser!  The four main tab pages are:
• Applicants
  
• Justification
  
• Observing Request
  
• Additional Issues
  
• These can be filled in any order (with one exception, see below). It should be noted that the JCMT is a 'plug-in' into a more general structure that applies to all telescopes that use the NorthStar account. While the fields have been kept as close as possible to JCMT's previous proposal form, there are a few differences that originate from the fact that this tool is intended as a "synergy" product amongst facilities, ultimately aimed at lowering the barrier to using more than one observatory.
• The fill-in fields on the pages are stored in a database that can be used to support the TAG process and Phase-II observation program submission. However, the Science and Technical justifications are kept free format documents: either Postscript or PDF files are acceptable. Please make sure to read the 'Instructions for preparation' on the Justification page. A page limit of 2 pages plus an optional figures page will be strictly imposed, with the following exceptions, which are allowed 3 pages plus a figures page:
• UK & CANADA: LONG-TERM PROPOSALS (more than one semester)
• UK:          LARGE PROPOSALS (asking for 96 hours or more)
• CANADA:      JCMT THESIS PROPOSALS (with the thesis student at a Canadian institution as the PI),
• In order to get NorthStar to accept a 3-page justification, the appropriate boxes ('long-term', 'large', 'thesis') need to be checked first on the Observing Request or Additional Issues pages.
• The Observing Request page asks to specify the observing time request per weather band AND per instrument. The two totals should be equal. The reason to ask for both is that the technical evaluators in the past have had problems assessing proposals because it would not be clear from the technical justification which instruments/observations where planned for which weather-band.
  

  IMPORTANT: ALL TIMES SPECIFIED SHOULD INCLUDE OBSERVATIONAL AND CALIBRATION OVERHEADS.

• Objects and coordinates can be specified either by hand, through SIMBAD, or via a text-based Target list. Please see the relevant section of the built-in help files for more information.
  

Northstar has been used now for several semesters by the JCMT and several other observatories. It was developed under the umbrella of the Synergy workgroup of RadioNet with the support of all of its partners and is expected to be deployed at more observatories in the future.  While we have tried to the best of our ability to check out the utility and the JCMT-specific portions in particular, unanticipated issues may come up, in which case we ask for your patience and that you try to contact us immediately. If problems related to Northstar, and beyond your control, prevent a timely submission, we will still accept the proposal. If you have other questions not covered by the help files, feel free to contact the JCMT.

PROPOSAL SCIENTIFIC and TECHNICAL JUSTIFICATION

% Example LaTeX commands to generate a NorthStar justification ps file
\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt]{article}
\oddsidemargin=-0.54cm
\evensidemargin=-0.54cm
\topmargin=-1.2cm
\textwidth=17cm
\textheight=25cm
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
% TEXT OF JUSTIFICATION HERE
\end{document}

PROPOSAL TARGET LIST

• directly in NorthStar 
  
• obtained from within the tool from e.g. SIMBAD 
  
• uploaded using a text file.
  

		Identifier RA Dec Equinox/Epoch [Duration [Priority]] 
	e.g.: 
		m35 06:45:59.93 -20:45:15.1 j2000 7200s 5 

• Duration (Optional) Give the requested observing time for this target in hours(h), minutes(m), or seconds(s). Enter '0' if not used but you want to specify a priority.
  
• Priority (Optional) The relative priority (1 = highest etc.) of the target compared to your other targets. Targets can share the same priority. If none is given, all targets are deemed equally important.

Which Queue ?

The JCMT Board have defined rules which determine how to categorise each application.

Proposals should be sent to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Canadian, or the International queue, depending on the primary funding agency of the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigators (CoIs):

• If the PI is employed by a UK, Netherlands or Canadian institution then submit the proposal to the UK, Netherlands or Canadian queue respectively.
• If the PI is not employed by a UK, Netherlands or Canadian institution, but at least one of the Co-Is is employed by an institution from one of these three countries, then submit the proposal to the national queue of the first-named of those Co-Is.
• If neither the PI nor any of the Co-Is is employed by an institution in the UK, the Netherlands, or Canada, then the proposal must be submitted to the International queue.
• Employees of the JAC are considered as 'International', unless they are the PI.
• If you are in any doubt about where to submit, then please e-mail Iain Coulson.

Submitting SERVICE Proposals

In general, SERVICE proposals may be submitted at any time (no deadline) to the UK or Canadian queue (but not to the International or Netherlands queues) for small, urgent, or exploratory projects. The rules regarding what constitutes a SERVICE project and how it is submitted are different for each queue:

• UK Service proposals (UKSERV)
• Canadian Service proposals (CANSERV)

Telescope Allocation Committee Policies

For your information, each national queue has its own telescope allocation committee and policies:

• United Kingdom TAG
• Canadian TAG