Regular Call for Semester 19A

Available Instruments

• Continuum

  • SCUBA-2
  • POL-2 is available for 450µm and 850µm science in 19A. Applicants should consult JCMT staff for sensitivity estimates.

• Heterodyne

  • HARP
  • The ʻŪʻū receiver of the new Namakanui instrument is expected to be available from late-April 2019 onwards on a limited, “shared risk” basis (see below) for 230 GHz science in 19A.

  The heterodyne backend, ACSIS, provides great flexibility in bandwidth and resolution. Various modes of observing are available for all associated heterodyne receivers.

Important Notes

• RxW and FTS-2 are not being offered in this Call.
• There is only one submission queue for this semester, labeled “PI Science”.
• Applicants from the University of Hawaii have a separate application process and may have a different deadline.
• RxA3m has now been decommissioned and will no longer be available for use during this or subsequent semesters.
• Shared Risk Observing: The Observatory offers this opportunity with the strong caveat that this observing mode is still under development and/or commissioning. Scientific results cannot be guaranteed for sensitivity, calibration and/or reliability without further work between the project observers and Observatory staff. The Observatory will make best efforts to assist scientists with the observing request, data acquisition and reduction, and result analysis. Time will not be returned to the project should the needed sensitivity or other parameters not be met.

Content of Proposal

Proposal authors are expected to provide separately both a Scientific and a Technical Justification for their proposed observations. These justifications should be substantiated by results from the JCMT integration time calculators to show that the proposed observations will reach the necessary noise limits for the proposed science goals. The calculators are integrated into the proposal submission system, and should be used to save the calculation(s) for their inclusion in the proposal.

Calibrations

Overheads for pointing, focusing, and calibrations should not be added to the time request. These activities will be accounted for separately. Calibration observations (e.g. focus, pointing, flux calibrators) and other unavoidable overheads (e.g. receiver tuning) are not charged to science projects and instead are charged to an Observatory accounting code. There is therefore no need for applicants to provide calibration overhead estimates in their proposals. The Observatory will perform regular and appropriate calibration observations to ensure that all science data obtained are sensibly calibrated.

• Spectroscopically, this involves observations of one of the JCMT spectral line standards at one of about ten different line frequencies. If the target observing frequency is one of these, then the proposers are in luck. In any case, the calibration allows the proposers to assess the performance of the instrument. Such an observation will be performed at least once per program unless a previous calibration is still appropriate, and more often if circumstances change or if more than a couple of hours pass.
• For continuum work, calibrators will be observed at both operational wavelengths of SCUBA-2 (450µm, 850µm) at appropriate times and airmass to meet the general needs of the science program.

If a proposal demands more unusual or more frequent calibrations then this needs to be clearly stated in the proposal and the time for these calibrations requested explicitly. For queries about what the default calibrations might be, or what extra overheads are generated by a project’s calibration requirements, please consult JCMT staff.

Previous Proposals

The proposers should provide information on any previous, successful JCMT allocations, including any papers published as a result or the status of the project. The success of previous projects can be taken into account when awarding time, so it is in the proposers’ interests to provide full information on this. A section is included within the proposal submission system for this information.

Data Available from the Archive and Large Programs

All proposers are expected to check that there are no preexisting public data that meet the proposal’s science needs, or conflicting large programs, before submitting a proposal. A clash tool is available to aid in this, which can be used to search for potential “clashes” between the proposed objects and available data sets. It also provides a link to an archive search for each target position. It is the proposers’ responsibility to ensure that sufficient explanation is included as to why any matching data does not meet the project’s needs — e.g. because it does not reach sufficient depth, or because is not at the right frequency, or because the observations were not of sufficient quality.

The ‘Outreach’ version of the proposed science

In the ‘Public Summary’ section, proposers should provide a paragraph describing the goals of the proposal in a way that is understandable to a general audience. A translation of the abstract might be a good starting point. This may be used in JCMT outreach efforts.

Flexible Scheduling

The overall philosophy of observing at JCMT is to match observing programs to the weather — see the Flexible Observing Guidelines page for more information. Data may then be acquired for a project at any time, even without the applicants being in attendance at the telescope. A summary was also given at the January 2015 Workshops.

Observer status

The “Members” section of the proposal form should be used to express the proposers’ willingness and ability to travel and observe. Observers from approved projects are invited on the basis of their project demands and TAC ranking, and will receive additional priority when in attendance. Identification of one or more possible observers for each proposal is strongly encouraged. Observers are needed to staff the observatory each night.

Further Questions

For any remaining further questions, please use the “Contact us” link at the bottom of any page of the proposal submission system.