UKIRT CALL FOR PROPOSALS, SEMESTER 07B

General Notes for Semester 07B

Instrument Blocks

The semester will comprise two blocks (inclusive):

• Wide Field (WFCAM): start-August to end-November, 2007

• Cassegrain (CGS4, UFTI and UIST): start-December, 2007 to end-January, 2008

N. B. The UKIRT primary mirror will undergo silvering/aluminizing during this semester.  This is currently anticipated to occur during August/September 2007, and will result in an expected total shutdown of approximately three weeks.

The deadline for submission of proposals is midnight, 15-Mar-2007 Hawaii Standard Time. The proposal system will come online on 1-Mar-2007 Hawaii Standard Time.

The projected WFCAM/Cassegrain schedule is available here:

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/schedule/Forwardlook.html

RA Ranges

UKIRT is flexibly scheduled and targets which are up for less than an entire night can be observed. For the WFCAM block running from August to November, 2007 (inclusive), we will accept targets between 16h and 10h in RA (wrapped around). For the Cassegrain block spanning December, 2007 to January, 2008, we will accept targets between 23h and 14h in RA.

Length and Origin of Proposals

UKIRT accepts submissions requesting both small (a few hours) and large (10 nights or more) amounts of time. Please note that UKIRT is an open telescope and accepts applications without restriction on country of origin. PIs with short projects should also consider the UKIRT Service Programme.

European PIs should note that UKIRT is part of the Opticon trans-national access programme, which is supported by the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), and that successful European applicants may qualify for travel and subsistence support via this programme. See

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/applying/UKIRT_opticon.html

for more details. In Semester 07B, it is expected that one or two runs should be supportable if granted summit status.

Proposal Forms

Please make sure you use the latest versions of the PATT2 form and style file.

Submission System

Submissions will open on 1-Mar-2007 HST. The submission system can be accessed via the Applications page.

WFCAM is a wide field 0.8-2.5 micron camera covering a 0.75 square degree tile in 4 pointings. See http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/wfcam/ for details on the instrument and filter availability, and the General notes above for constraints on scheduling and proposals. WFCAM sensitivity estimates are also available on the WFCAM instrument page. PIs applying for time using WFCAM should carefully check these estimates before preparing their proposal, as the UKATC WFCAM site no longer lists sensitivities. WFCAM observers in 07B should typically expect to image a standard stars field approximately every two hours in order to calibrate the system.

WFCAM filters available for public use in semester U/07B will be Z, Y, J, H, K, and H2 1-0 S1.

UIST is available for imaging, integral-field and long-slit spectroscopy. It may also be used with IRPOL for imaging- and spectro-polarimetry. Note that new blocking filters for the IJ and JH grisms are also now available.

UIST provides the following capabilities:

• Imaging at high angular resolution with two spatial scales: 0.12'' (0.06'') over a 2'x2' (1'x1') field. SEE BELOW FOR AN UPDATE ON IMAGING IN THE THERMAL INFRARED.
  
• Long (120'') slit spectroscopy with resolving powers from 1000-4000 at 1-5 microns, (with optimal sensitivity between the OH sky lines in the JHK bands). Slit widths are 0.12", 0.24", 0.48", 0.60" and 0.84"(1, 2, 4, 5, 7-pixels).
• Integral-field spectroscopy over a rotatable 3.3'' x 6.8'' field with an angular resolution of 0.24''x0.12". The IFU can be used with any grism except the IJ and JH, for which no good focus can be attained. The IFU is optimised for use in the K-band.
• Imaging polarimetry and spectropolarimetry with all available filters and grisms. The former uses a 20"x120" focal-plane mask, the latter a 3- or 5-pixel (0.36" or 0.60") wide by 20" long rotatable slit mask.
  
• Coronagraphic imaging and coronagraphic imaging polarimetry is available using either a 0.7" or a 1.3" occulting wire (see the UIST manual for details).
  

Standard JHKL'M' broad band filters are offered for imaging, together with a selection of narrowband 1.0-4.0 micron filters.

We expect that the following additional imaging filter will be available:

• WFCAM-Y MK 0.97-1.07 microns

See

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/uist/uist.html

for a description of UIST and its sensitivity.

UIST THERMAL PERFORMANCE

N.B. UIST will be equipped with a new controller before the semester starts and PIs should expect to be able to read out the full array area when imaging in the thermal wavebands (broad L' and M filters).

UFTI - AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2007 - JANUARY 2008

UFTI is a 1-2.5um imager equiped with a 1024x1024 HgCdTe array (pixel scale 0.09"; fov ~ 90 arcsec). See

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/ufti/ufti.html

and

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/ufti/ufti_fp.html

for details. Note that for point-source non-thermal imaging requiring a small field of view, UFTI is more sensitive than UIST and should be the instrument of choice.

Additional notes:

• We expect that the following additional imaging filter will be available: WFCAM-Y 0.97-1.07 microns
• In order to accommodate the new WFCAM-Y MK filter, the H2 2.248 MK filter will not be available for semester 07B on UFTI.  It will, however, still be available on UIST.
  
• The current 'Z' filter will be replaced with a Z_MK filter similar to that of UIST.
  
  

CGS4 - AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2007 - JANUARY 2008

CGS4 is a 1-5 micron 2D grating spectrometer offering resolutions of 600-2000 with the 40l/mm grating or 37000 with the echelle. The 150l/mm grating is not available. CGS4 should be explicitly requested for use with the 15km/s resolution Echelle, or for high-sensitivity observations of sources where the wider wavelength coverage provided by UIST is not required. Users should consider the relative sensitivities, available slit widths and wavelength coverages of UIST and CGS4 before deciding on which instrument is best suited to their programme.

See

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/cgs4/cgs4.html

for CGS4 documentation, and

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/cgs4/current.html

for the current and future configuration status.