Call for Proposals for Observing Time at JCMT

Semester 09B

Submission Deadline:

For telescope time in Semester 09B (1st August 2009 - 31st January 2010) the closing date for receipt of proposals is

(except for those from the University of Hawaii)

NEWS for 09b

• RxWD is commissioned, and is available in 09b. Beam-switching observing modes are recommended for best baselines.
• HARP is being refurbished in Feb/Mar 2009 and should be available in 09b with all 16 receptors working.
• Frequency switching with HARP and RxA in Stare and Jiggle modes is offered in this Call. NB: HiTEC will soon be updated to include fsw modes. Until then, estimates of integration times and rms noise levels for frequency-switched observations should be derived by adjusting those for beam-switched observations: rms noise levels will be 1/sqrt(2) times those derived for bmsw observations of the same duration, for instance.

Important Notes

• JAC is hosting the Northstar proposal submission again this semester (Click here for submission instructions).
• Be sure to submit your proposal to the correct national queue. Submitting to the wrong queue may result in the rejection of the proposal.
• Applicants are urged to
  • use HiTEC, (the Heterodyne integration TimE Calculator), and
  • itemize explicitly, in the Technical section of the proposal, their input to HiTEC (viz. Receiver, frequency, airmass/elevation, opacity, observing mode, spectral/velocity resolution, desired rms noise levels), as well as their output (integration time).
  This is essential to allow the assigned Technical Assessor to confirm the proposal's feasibility.
• The JCMT Legacy Surveys continue in 09b. The JCMT Board has decided that the science goals of the surveys are to be protected from duplication. Each proposal submitted is checked for possible conflicts, but applicants should ensure that, if their proposed targets overlap with survey fields, sufficient justification is given in the proposal as to how and why the proposed observations and science differ from the survey project. See below for details on how to check for such overlap.
• JCMT operates a 12-hour night, running from approximately 7:30pm to 7:30am HST. This table shows source transit times during semester B.
• Your proposal must specify the weather conditions (read opacity) that it requires or can tolerate. The amount of time available per weather/opacity band varies through the year. We particularly encourage the submission of projects which can make use of grade 5 weather (0.2 < τ_225GHz < 0.32) - using (primarily) RxA.
• Applicants from countries of the European Union (except the UK and the Netherlands) may be eligible for RadioNet funding to aid with their travel expenses. (See below for further details).

          Contents
• Available Instrumentation - RxA, HARP, RxW(D)     +     ACSIS
• Calculating Integration Time and Overheads - using HiTEC
• Proposal Submission
• To Which Queue Should You Send Your Application? - Where's your home base ?

• Future Instrumentation - SCUBA-2, eSMA, ROVER
• Supported Observing Modes - the many available observing patterns and switching schemes
• JCMT Legacy Survey - how to avoid protected targets
• Atmospheric Opacity Statistics - request appropriate weather conditions
• Observer Status and Queue Observing - whether you should expect to travel to Hawaii - or not !
• RadioNet support of European Applicants - Are you eligible ?
• The JCMT Users e-mail exploder - Keep informed.

Available Instrumentation

Heterodyne Receivers - General status

• RxA3 (211-272 GHz) - has a single receptor. Status & Characteristics
• HARP (325-375 GHz) - is a 16-element B-band array. Status & Characteristics
• RxW(D) (630-710 GHz) - Dual-channel receiver. Instrumental sensitivities should be used with caution.

Heterodyne Backend

• ACSIS - Available bandwidths, spectral resolutions and backend modes.
  • The ACSIS correlating spectrometer is a highly flexible backend; it was designed to work with HARP, but it works with all our heterodyne receivers.

Future Instrumentation

• JCMT can combine with SMA + CSO to form the interferometer known as eSMA.
  • Commissioning of the eSMA is ongoing, but it is not available for common user science proposals at this time. A separate call will be issued for Pilot observing programs at the appropriate time.
• The heterodyne polarimeter, ROVER
  • . . . has not yet been fully commissioned, and is not available for use at this time.
• SCUBA-2 - an array receiver operating simultaneously at 850microns and 450microns
  • SCUBA-2, equipped with two engineering arrays, was delivered to the telescope in March 2008 and integrated into the observatory. The science-grade arrays are scheduled to arrive in Hawaii in April 2009 and commissioning is likely to re-commence towards the end of 09A. SCUBA-2 is therefore not being offered to the community in this Call. Depending on progress, a special Call for shared-risk SCUBA-2 science projects may be issued later in the semester.

Supported Observing Modes:

Several modes of observing have been tested and are supported, including

• Single-spectrum samples
• Grid-mapping
• Jiggle-Chop mapping
• Jiggle-PSSW mapping
• Raster mapping

These observing modes and the different switching schemes that go with them:

• beam-switch
• position-switch
• frequency-switch

Calculating Integration Time and Overheads:

A Heterodyne Integration TimE Calculator HITEC, has been updated and upgraded to use the current complement of receivers and observing modes. HITEC can be used to calculate the integration time needed to reach a given RMS per channel as a function of frequency and weather. Versions of the JCMT Observing Tool (JCMTOT) from 2007 or later give equivalent results.

Don't forget to include the overhead factors recommended by HITEC in your calculation of the total time required.

JCMT Legacy Survey

JCMT Legacy Survey projects will play an increasing role in science operations over the coming semesters. Seven projects were approved by the JCMT Board in July 2005, and were described in the Spring 2006 issue of the JCMT Newsletter. An overview of the science goals and sources for each can be read here.

The JCMT Board has decided that the science goals of the survey projects are to be protected against duplication by PI projects, and that scientific merit should be the guiding principle in cases of overlap. This means that no regions of the sky are off-limits: PIs who submit proposals to observe fields claimed by the survey projects will, however, be required to provide additional justification for so doing. If that justification is not provided or is insufficient, time will not be awarded. It is anticipated that time will normally be awarded to PIs in such cases only when the observations represent an extension of the surveys: e.g., in depth, in area or in frequency. (Note that these duplication rules do not apply to the University of Hawaii queue.)

In order to enable proposers to identify potential conflicts with the survey programme, a web-based Survey Clash Detector tool has been developed. The tool simply reports positional clashes for an instrument; it does not attempt to say whether the clash constitutes a conflict between your proposal and one of the surveys. If a clash is detected, you will need to check the survey descriptions to determine if there is a conflict.

Atmospheric Opacity Statistics

It's well known that summer months tend to be much wetter than winter months, but on average, how much wetter is it? Just how much time is generally available in certain weather bands at certain times of the year? Click here for a discussion, reprinted from the Spring 2007 issue of the JCMT Newsletter, on atmospheric opacity statistics. For example, in winter months (Dec-April) on average only about 10-15% of the time is grade 1, while in summertime the fraction is under 5%. Conversely, as much as 20-30% of the time is grade 5 weather.

Proposal Submission

If you had a (surviving) Northstar account previously you can login with your old username and password; new users should register first. Help regarding the submission process is available here - - - and in our Help pages !

To Which Queue Should You Send Your Application?:

Proposals should be submitted 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.

Observer Status and Queue Observing:

Canadian & Netherlands Projects

Canadian and Dutch programs have been executed successfully in recent years during dedicated observing blocks. The observer during these blocks is usually associated with one of the high-priority programs to be observed, but is effectively running the entire Canadian/Dutch queue in a flexible manner. Canadian and Dutch applicants should anticipate the possibility that they may or may not be asked to be an observer for their national queue.

UK Projects

On the other hand, UK programs are scheduled individually, but only if the UK TAG has determined that an observer should be present. The observer then primarily observes their own program if the weather permits, and, secondarily, observes other programs from the UK queue, including those for which no observer was deemed essential.

The determination of 'observer' status by the UK TAG is guided by several factors including the complexity of the program, the weather requirements, the time needed, and the priority awarded the program. Consider these examples:

• A high-priority, good-weather, complex program will most likely require an observer from among the applicants to go to Hawaii to observe the program, whereas
• a moderately-ranked, straight-forward program needing grade 3/4 weather may be successfully observed during flexible observing by the attendant JCMT TSS, and will not need an observer from among the applicants to be in attendance.
• However, a short, straight-forward, high-priority program requiring the very best (and rarest) weather may not attract observer status on the grounds that the observer would be unlikely to be in attendance when the weather was suitable. Such a program could be observed as a priority when the weather was suitably good.
• If the PI has a specific reason that observer status would be required, those reasons should be listed in the "Scheduling Preferences" section of the proposal.

Note also that the JCMT Scheduler may, after consultation with the UKTAG Tech.Sec., change the UKTAG's observer/non-observer status, if and when required by constraints on the schedule.

International Projects

Allocated programs from the International queue are, except in very rare circumstances, required to provide an observer to staff the telescope during their scheduled time. Nevertheless, observing programs remain in the queue and may be observed during other international observing blocks, or during JCMT Legacy Survey blocks (see above) when no suitable JLS projects are available.

Flexible Scheduling

RadioNet support of European Applicants:

The JCMT is a member of the European Union's RadioNet consortium of European radio observatories. Under the terms of this programme, eligible European observers at JCMT may have their travel and subsistence costs reimbursed by RadioNet. The JCMT also receives a fee for the time spent observing eligible projects, the proceeds of which are being used to fund the development of SCUBA-2.

The primary eligibility criterion is that the PI, and at least half of all the applicants, must be from an EU member country (excluding NL and UK) or an EU associated state. Proposals should be submitted to the appropriate queue following the rules for all programs described in this Call, and will be assessed by the appropriate TAG alongside other proposals in that queue. The PIs of successful, RadioNet-eligible proposals will be informed of the procedures for reimbursement. For more information please contact Iain Coulson.

The JCMT Users e-mail exploder:

From time to time, subscribers to the 'jcmt_users' email list will receive notices on the status of the JCMT, call for proposals, etc. To subscribe, please visit http://mailman.jach.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/jcmt_users

And Finally:

If you've read all this and still have questions about the scheduling, the submission deadlines, the procedures, etc - please contact me.

Iain Coulson
JCMT Scheduler