Regular Call for Semester 24A

Semester Information

Semester start of observing	2024-02-02 00:00 UT
Semester end of observing	2024-08-02 00:00 UT

The East Asian Observatory invites observing proposals with Principal Investigators (PIs) from its partner regions (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand), from Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Vietnam, or from eligible PIs in the UK and Ireland that contribute to JCMT funding. It is noted that China PIs must be affiliated with the national observatories, and university groups that are directly funding their projects. All prospective PIs should review the JCMT eligibility requirements page prior to the preparation and submission of a proposal.

PI requests are limited to a maximum of 200 hours; each PI proposal should aim to be completed during the semester.

The Time Allocation Committee (TAC) for JCMT will assess each PI proposal for scientific merit and will rank and approve observing time accordingly.
Multi-national collaborations are encouraged — time will be distributed following the rules for collaborative projects.
Projects which request the heterodyne instruments and/or weather bands 4 and 5 are encouraged.
Anyone who submits a proposal to the JCMT should expect to be called upon to review one or two of the other proposals received in the same round. The continued co-operation of our user community in the review process is appreciated.

Important Notes

PIs from Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Brazil and Argentina are welcome to apply for a limited amount of time (<5 hours per program this time constraint is not limited in Grade 5 time). Completion of any science program awarded time is not guaranteed. Approval reliant upon the program being technically feasible, without clashing with existing proprietary data. Data collection is dependent on weather/instrument/queue pressures with adjustments in line with recommendations by the TAC. Under the “Expanding Partner Program” priority will be given to new users of the JCMT.
Applicants from the University of Hawaii have a separate application process and may have a different deadline.

Available Instruments

Heterodyne
- HARP
- The ʻŪʻū (230 GHz) receiver of the Nāmakanui instrument
- The ʻĀweoweo (345 GHz) receiver of the Nāmakanui instrument, available on a “shared risk” basis (see below) for 345 GHz science from March in Semester 24A.
The heterodyne backend, ACSIS, provides great flexibility in bandwidth and resolution. Various modes of observing are available for all associated heterodyne receivers.

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.

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 (or otherwise) JCMT proposals, 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.

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. JCMT observations are conducted remotely on behalf of the proposers, in accordance with EAO flexible observing guidelines.

Shared Risk Observing (ʻĀweoweo)

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. Proposals requesting ʻĀweoweo should include a backup plan using HARP in case their project is affected by commissioning downtime.

Further Questions

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