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UKIRT Proposals are now submitted to PATT via the Astron Northstar submission system. 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 UKIRT 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 screenHere you enter your user ID and password. Click "Register as new user" if you don't have one. See the next section. Registering as a new userNOTE: users who have used the UKIRT service proposal system do not need to register a new account - your existing userid and password will work.If you are a new user, you will need to fill in three forms: Personal information, Institution information, and Confirmation screen.
The Proposal ListOnce 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. The proposal screen has four tabs, covering Applicants, Science Justification, Observing requested and Other issues.  Selecting ApplicantsAdding an applicant is straightforward.
Note that all required fields are flagged with an asterisk.
 Later, if you decide 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:  Note: 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
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Combining case pages in one file
Note that 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 of order 10 nights or more) then you are allowed two pages of science justification and one page of technical case, plus one page of figures and references. Before ticking the "large proposal" button (see the next section) you should contact ukirtscheduler at jach.hawaii.edu for further details.
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.
Note: 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
Here you specify some general properties of the proposal (e.g. whether it is a long-term proposal, whether it requests a large amount of time (e.g. of order of 10 nights or more), list Targets (which include instrument specifications), and make any scheduling comments.
Specifying an observation
First step is to give the general telescope configuration (instrument etc.). If you expect to have to use shorter than default exposure times, then please give brief details here so that additional overheads can be estimated at technical assessment.
Individual Target
This is the interface for specifying a target and how it is to be observed:
If you don't have any particular dark/grey time requirement, please just tick "bright".
Uploading a target list
If you have a lot of targets and one instrument configuration, use the "upload target list" button, which gives details of the file format required:
Note that to specify, for example, a field such as "Infrared Magn." you also need to specify all fields to its left. If you don't have a value for any numerical field, but need to specify it in order to specify one further to the right, please use an obvious "dummy" number (such as 0.0). An example of a complete target list, with all fields specified, is shown below.
Remember, when entering values into a target list file, that whitespace is used to separate the various fields; so should only be used for other purposes in the final column (the "Comments" column).
Other administrative details
Elsewhere on the observing request form you are asked for information on scheduling, calibrations required (it is acceptable to respond "standard calibrations only"), experience of observers who have not used the telescope before and for UK observers only, details of any associated grants and T/S requirements.
The "Additional Issues" tab
Here you are asked for details of linked proposals, student involvement and previous proposals and publications.
- 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.