Regular Call for Semester 19A

Semester Information

Semester start of observing 2019-02-02 00:00 UT
Semester end of observing 2019-08-02 00:00 UT

PLEASE NOTE: THIS SYSTEM IS NOT CURRENTLY IN USE FOR GENERAL UKIRT CALLS FOR PROPOSALS

Important Notes

This is a limited access call. At the current time, only EAO-affiliated PIs with a pre-existing agreement can use this system to submit their UKIRT proposals.

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 19A semester, we will accept targets from 4h to 1h in RA (wrapped around 0h). PIs should also note that projects which can use less than optimal conditions tend to do well in the queue; “poor weather” proposals are encouraged.

Available Instruments

Content of Proposal

Proposal authors are expected to provide separately both a scientific and a technical justification for their proposed observations. For imaging photometry proposals, these justifications should be substantiated with results from our integration time calculators to show that the proposed observations will reach the necessary sensitivities/noise levels for your science goals. The calculator is integrated into our proposal submission system and you should use it to save your calculation(s) to your proposal. As a spectroscopic sensitivity calculator is not available, all time calculations for spectroscopy proposals should be explained in the technical justification section with sufficient clarity that they can be reproduced during technical assessment.

Calibrations

Overheads for pointing and focusing observations should not be added to the time request. These activities will be accounted for separately.

Please do include estimated time requirements for all necessary flux, spectroscopic and/or polarimetric calibration observations in the total time estimates for the proposal.

If a proposal demands more unusual or more frequent calibrations then this should also be clearly stated in the proposal and the time for these calibrations requested explicitly. If you have any queries about calibrations and associated overheads, please contact the Observatory.

Previous Proposals

The proposers should provide information on any previous, successful UKIRT 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 your interests to provide full information on this. A section is included within the proposal submission system for this information.

Pre-existing Data

We request that all prospective PIs/co-Is check that their planned observations do not duplicate pre-existing UKIRT datasets before submitting their proposal. Please see this UKIDSS page and this non-UKIDSS page for more details.

Flexible Scheduling

The overall philosophy of observing at UKIRT is to match observing programs to the weather. Data may then be acquired for a project at any time.

Further Questions