PATT ITAC Report for Semester 98A

1. Introduction

This document details the allocations for telescope time made by the ITAC for the semester 98A (1st February 1998 - 31st July 1998).

2. Allocations

The individual partner TAGs hold meetings in their respective countries prior to the PATT session to assess applications deemed by the JCMT Board rule to be from their own country. At these meetings informal numbers of shifts are nominated for each application in a priority order. The Chairpersons of each TAG bring their respective lists to the PATT where the ITAC combine the awards, include discussion of the engineering and commissioning requirements, and assess the International applications. The final allocations of shifts are made by the ITAC.

Applications considered            

UK status#               81 
Canadian status#         46 
Netherlands status       21 
International status     22 
University of Hawaii      8 
TOTAL:                  178 

# two UK & one Canadian carry-overs have not been included in this total.

The PATT meeting was held at the Leofric Hotel, Coventry, UK on 3rd & 4th December 1997.

It should be noted that if the PI on an application is a JCMT staff member based in Hilo, then the application is assessed by the appropriate national TAG. However, by Board rule, International status is given to any application where the only named collaborator from any partner country is a JCMT staff member. International applications are assessed by the ITAC members at their meeting.

Time Available  (in 16-hour nights)                        

No. of nights in semester 98A      181.0 
Engineering & Commissioning         31.5 
University of Hawaii (10%)          14.5 
Director's discretionary use         4.0 
Available for PATT science:        131.0 

The above table indicates the order in which nights are removed from the total available for the semester. The table below indicates the allocations using the JCMT Board formula for attributing applications to countries.

Awards (in 16-hour nights)            

UK status                  62.7 
Canadian status            25.7 
Netherlands status         20.6 
International status       22.0 
University of Hawaii       14.5 
TOTAL allocation:         145.5 

3. Designated Service time

Allocations for this semester are:

CDN = 5.0 shifts allocated (with 1.25 shifts designated as CNflex);

NL = 0 shifts allocated (with up to 4 shifts in the Nlflex fallback program);

UK = 0 shifts allocated (with up to 7 shifts in the Ukflex fallback program);

INT = 0 shifts allocated (with 0.25 shifts designated as INTflex).

4. Non-standard Instrumentation

The University of Lethbridge FTS system was allocated time in several applications and is scheduled for late May. There was insufficient interferometry time requested to implement an SBI session with CSO this semester.

Instrument distribution             

A-band                  11% 
B-band                  17% 
C-band                   1% 
FTS                      2% 
SCUBA                   69% 

5. Applications with Long-Term Status

L/M/97B/U65 was given a further 9 shifts in 98A to complete observations of the Hubble Deep Field. L/M/97B/U46 was given 7 shifts in 98A to continue observations of IRAS Bright Galaxy Survey sources and CFA Redshift Survey objects. The student thesis project, M/Y/C05 was also awarded a further 1 shift which should conclude this project.

6. Short Baseline Interferometry

Due to the small amount of time requested for SBI observations, it was not felt practical to organsie an SBI session for this semester.

7. Engineering & Commissioning

Commissioning of the antenna and instrumentation continues, with periods required a) to characterise and improve the surface via metrology and beam map measures, b) to monitor the antenna performance and tracking through pointing and inclinometry runs, and c) to measure receiver performances and efficiencies.

Time has been allocated for commissioning of RxA3i, and for RxW according to the commissioning plans made available by the instrument builders.

8. Fallback Programmes

A number of applications have been approved by the ITAC to be included in the schedule should any of the instrumentation fail to meet their delivery schedules. The commissioning time set aside for these instruments will be apportioned according to the partner funding ratio after 10% has been given to the University of Hawaii. Applicants on these fallback programmes will be informed by the JCMT Scheduler when/if their time is to be scheduled.

9. The UKflex System

The UK TAG actually only allocated time to 104.5 shifts of its final allocation of 136 shifts. The outstanding 31.5 shifts were designated as UKflex time. A selection of heterodyne A- and B-band applications, together with SCUBA applications not requiring very stringent weather conditions, with high scientific ratings were placed on the UKflex list in priority order and with a nominal time allocation. The intention is that each high-frequency allocation be extended by a shift or two of UKflex time thus increasing the chance of obtaining suitable weather to complete the high-frequency program. Under weather conditions unsuitable for the high-frequency observing, the current observers or staff scientist would undertake observations from the UKflex list in serviced mode in priority order. Successful applicants on the UKflex list have been informed that they have to submit complete templates for their observations but that there is no guarantee that any part of their program will be done during the semester.

10. Electronic Submission

Various electronic submission procedures have been tried at other PATT facilities with varying degrees of success. Due to the international status, and because there are currently 3 different collection locations for applications to the JCMT, we have so far kept out of these experiments.

The Netherlands already implement a very successful electronic submission scheme. For the current semester 97B round all Netherlands applications were accepted electronically and made available to Hawaii via FTP. The Canadian community is encouraged to submit electronically and, although the numbers are increasing, the majority of applications are still sent as hardcopy.

A system has now been setup in Hawaii that resembles the HST electronic submission procedures. This software suite is under licence from the STScI. For semester 98A, International applicants were encouraged to submit their proposals directly to a designated account at the JAC. This trial was extremely successful then it will be expanded for semester 98B to include the UK community. The JCMT application template (PATT3) will be modified for use by ALL applicants so that the JAC staff can link to the Canadian and Netherlands schemes.

11. Procedures for Semester 98B

The deadline for for semester 98B (1st July 1998 through 31st January 1999) applications is 31st March 1998 for ALL applicants. This deadline encompasses applications for all available instrumentation on the JCMT (RxA2, RxB3, RxC2, SCUBA, and the SCUBA single-pixel polarimeter). There is also likely to be an SBI run during the semester. It is not possible to apply for features specific to either RxA3i or to RxW (ie: no D-band observations) since these instruments may not have been commissioned prior to the ITAC meeting in early June.