UKIRT CALL FOR PROPOSALS, SEMESTER 09B

General Notes for Semester 09B

Semester 09B will run from the end of July 2009 to the end of January 2010. The deadline for submission of proposals is midnight, at the end of 15-Mar-2009 Hawaii Standard Time. The proposal system will come online on 2-Mar-2009 Hawaii Standard Time. It is anticipated that there will be up to 18 WFCAM nights available for PATT and service time proposals in semester 09B.

Instrumentation

UKIRT has switched to wide-field-only mode as of February 2009; WFCAM is therefore the only offered instrument. The latest updates on this process were given in the following two links:

http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/news/WF_Announcement.html
http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/news/WF_Announcement_2.html

RA Ranges & Bad-Weather Projects

UKIRT is flexibly scheduled and targets which are up for less than an entire night can be observed. For the 09B semester we will accept targets from 16-24h and 0-14h in RA.  Also, PIs should note that projects which can use less than optimal conditions tend to do well in the queue; "poor weather" proposals are encouraged.

Length and Origin of Proposals

UKIRT is an open telescope and accepts applications without restriction on country of origin. Submissions requesting anything from small (a few hours) to large (10 nights or more) amounts of time will be accepted. PIs with short projects (three hours or less) should apply via the UKIRT Service Programme unless their project has significantly complicated scheduling requirements.

European PIs should note that UKIRT is part of the Opticon trans-national access programme, which is supported by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), 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

Proposal Forms, Submission System and Integration Time Calculator (ITC)

Submissions for 09B will be via the Northstar proposal system, which will now be located at the JAC. Please see the UKIRT NorthStar primer before logging into this system.

The Northstar system will open on 2-Mar-2009 HST. The system will be accessible via the Applications page.

Instrument Summary

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 available on the WFCAM instrument page, and via the integration time calculator.

WFCAM filters available for public use in semester 09B will be Z, Y, J, H, K, H2 1-0 S(1) and narrowband H.

The Brackett gamma filter will not be available in semester 09B.