Using the NorthStar Proposal Submission System at JCMT

NB: On your first connection with this dedicated server you may need to

• 'Add an exception', and
• 'View the certificate'

The system has been in use by JCMT and some other observatories for some time, is self-documenting and has useful help at most steps; but since it will be new to many JCMT users, we provide here some introductory documentation. Note that this page is intended only as an introduction, and is not exhaustive. Please therefore also read the internal help documentation to which you will see links on virtually all screens.

Troubleshooting tips are available at the bottom of this page.

The login screen

Enter your pre-existing user ID and password - or . . .

Register as a new user

1. Personal information

2. Institutional information
   

3. and then must Confirm it all:
   

   The Proposal List

   Once logged in, you will be able to create a new proposal (as below), or, if you already have proposals under preparation, elect to edit one.
   
   Click for better view

   The bottom part of the window (not shown above) shows any previous proposals, and is followed by the button

   

   Clicking on this button takes to a window where you must choose the queue to which the proposal is being submitted.

   

   Please see the NOTES elsewhere on how to decide this, select one queue from the dropdown list, and click OK.

   The proposal screen has four tabs.

   1. Applicants
   2. (Science & Technical) Justification
   3. Observing request
   4. Additional issues.
   
   Click for better view

   Adding Applicants

   All required fields are flagged with an asterisk:
   

   If you decide later that you would like to invite an applicant who wasn't invited initially, you can do so from the "applicants" page. The "invite" button gets you a confirmation screen as follows:

   

   NB: the email address used here must match identically that used by the co-I on registration (and vice versa), because it is used in security validation for access to your proposal. Mail aliases which are functionally but not typographically equivalent are, of course, unknown to the system and so will not work.

   Science Justification Page

   
   Click for better view

   Here you enter the title, the abstract and select files to upload for the science case, technical case and figures/references. You can -- at any time -- save the proposal in your own computer for future completion by Clicking the appropriate button shown at bottom. Clicking the 'Save and Submit' button takes you to a confirmation page - so there's no risk of accidental submission. (Save your proposal regularly to avoid frustration).

   Upload buttons and dialogues

   
   The three upload buttons
   

   get you into dialogues for upload of pdf or ps page images, or plain text files.

   

   Note that all fonts should be 11 point or larger. Smaller fonts will be rejected by the TAG.
   
   

   Combining case pages in one file

   By default, the justification files are three individual one-page PDFs, where the first page is the science case, the second page is for technical case only, and the third page is for figures and references. It is possible to combine the science and technical cases into one two-page file and skip loading "Second Justification File" in the form above. If you have ticked the "Assess as large proposal" button (in other words if your proposal seeks 96 hours of observing or more) then you are allowed two pages of science justification and one page of technical case, plus one page of figures and references.

   Summary: in all cases the Figures and References page must be uploaded as a separate file, but the system will allow science and tech cases to be combined in the first upload - spanning two pages for normal submissions, three pages for Large Proposals. Click here for some additional tips on preparing justification PDFs.

   Saving your proposal

   The following buttons are on all subsequent screens
   

   You can save your proposal in the database and return to it at a later date. Only upon clicking the final button ("Save and Submit") does your proposal get a project ID number. It is, of course, a good idea to "Save and continue" fairly regularly in any given session.

   Observing Request Page

   (A partial screen image is shown below)

   Here you specify the targets of the observing proposal, and the necessary amount of time, weather-type and instrument suite. You can also specify if it is a long-term proposal, or whether it requests a large amount of time (needing 84 hours or more), and you can make any scheduling comments. Flexible scheduling is the default operation of JCMT and you should request non-flexible scheduling only in exceptional circumstances.

   
   Click for better view

   Specifying an observation

   

   Give the target name -- maybe use Simbad to get your coordinates loaded -- and give the integration time and priority if applicable.

   Uploading a target list

   

   Each entry in the list must be in the JCMT catalog format shown. One white-space separates the fields.

   Additional Issues

   Provide information on students, proposals to other TAGs, etc.. You might use the free format box to detail previous proposals, the needs of inexperienced observers - and anything else you think is relevant to a full assessment of this proposal.
   
   Click for better view

   Troubleshooting

   • When filling in numerical dialogue boxes, try to use a simple numerical format, rather than specifying hours and minutes, e.g. use "2.5" rather than "2 hours 30 mins". If not, you may receive the error "must be a double".
   • Always try to log in & log out of NorthStar cleanly, otherwise browser cookies may be set that generate unpredictable page navigation & UI responses. Also, try to use the navigation links in the NorthStar pages, rather than the browser "Forward" and "Back" buttons.
     
   • When preparing science and technical cases, we strongly recommend using PDF files, and reading these notes.
   • Sometimes a pdf science-case file will fail to upload, with an error message implying that the system doesn't think it is a pdf file. It appears that this is a mime types issue, and there are a number of possible solutions: (i) try running a different web browser; (ii) convert your pdf file to postscript and uploading that instead; or (iii) shut your browser down, move ~/.mailcap to a different file name, run your browser back up and retry the upload. (Reinstate .mailcap after you have completed the uploading.) It is possible that ~/.mime.types is involved, but ~/.mailcap is the more likely.
     
   
   
   

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   Thanks to Mark Rawlings for the original (UKIRT) version of this page.

   Iain Coulson/20080814