Deadline: 02/04/2013

  • Description:

The deadline for the submission of proposals for Spanish CAT night observing time is next 2 April (on Tuesday at 5 pm Canarian local time).

Important recet changes :

  • Invitation for long-term proposals, intended to accommodate projects that require long-term or synoptic coverage, and large-size programmes. Long-term proposals must satisfy four requirements:
    • involve novel ideas, opportunities for great advancement, or legacy programmes,
    • span between two and four semesters,
    • publicly release their final high-level products in an appropriate format, and
    • be led by a Spanish institution.
      A new application form is available at ftp://ftp.iac.es/pub/research/cat/cat.tar.z
  • Every proposal must be led by a principal investigator (PI) affiliated to a Spanish Institution.
  • A new LaTeX style is available at ftp://ftp.iac.es/pub/research/cat/cat.tar.z. Its use is mandatory in order to be consistent with the modifications introduced in the application form.
    A new form is also available in Word format at ftp://ftp.iac.es/pub/research/cat/cat_word.doc
  • GTC proposals:
    • Roll-Over of Observing Programmes on the GTC: Currently, a certain fraction of approved GTC proposals cannot be completed within one semester, mainly owing to their stringent observing requirements. Hence many proposals have to be re-submitted in order to be completed, involving an extra effort from the proposal team and the CAT. Starting this semester 2013B, approved CAT proposals ranked in the first quartile, will be granted an extended life-time of three semesters, or until their completion, whichever comes first.
    • Filler Programmes
      In order to have an efficient queue-scheduled observations scheme for the GTC, it is useful to have a set of “filler” programmes that can be executed under adverse observing conditions (bad seeing, poor sky transmission, etc.)and with targets spanning a wide range in RA. Proposers may request “filler” status for their programme, and during the proposal selection process CAT will evaluate their suitability for this category. Such proposals can request a large number of observing hours. In order to be considered as “filler” proposals they must fulfil the following requirements:
      a) their observing requirements should be very relaxed, i.e. little or no restrictions on seeing, cloud coverage, and water vapour.
      b) the chosen observing mode should be a frequently used mode: broad/narrow-band imaging and long-slit spectroscopy for OSIRIS; and only direct imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy for CANARICAM.
      c) the scientific objectives of the proposal can be fulfilled even if only a small fraction of the requested observations are executed.
      d) proposers must provide a list of targets with a broad RA coverage; alternatively, if only few targets are included, they must have good visibility during the semester.
  • Information about applying for observing time at the GTC can be found at http://www.gtc.iac.es/observing/media/GTC_2013B_CallForProposals.pdf
  • Available observing time for WHT through Spanish CAT. Currently, about 35% of the observing time at the WHT is managed by this committee. In previous semesters, all this time has been offered to the Spanish community; however, starting this semester, 20% of the time will be distributed to the best-ranked proposals from the Spanish community, and the remaining 15% will be reserved for proposals led by PIs affiliated to the IAC. This change of policy corresponds to a change in the funding arrangements.
  • Information about applying for observing time on the Isaac Newton Group telescopes can be found at http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/2013B-AO.pdf
  • The application form will automatically include information about the results obtained from observations performed with proposals awarded time during the previous 6 semesters (not including 13A). Such information must be supplied by the investigators before to submit any proposal (for further information, see http://www.iac.es/cat/media/nocturno/anuncios/bibcodes.txt).
  • The IAC80 and Carlos Sanchez Telescope (TCS) are no longer offered through CAT. Any interested potential users must directly contact the Chief of Telescope Operations [aoscoz at iac.es].

General reminders:

  • To submit a proposal, you have to be registered AT: http://cat.iac.es
  • If you are already registed but you do not remember your password, please do NOT register TWICE (in order to avoid confusions for statistical purposes).
    You can find instructions about how to reset your password in the same webpage.
  • Please check that the uploaded pdf file contain the latest version of the proposal and it prints correctly, before the deadline expires. No replacement or updating of the proposal content will be made after the deadline, and all those proposals which do not correctly print out or lack relevant sections will be automatically withdrawn from the process of evaluation process. Those proposals where the font size (10pt) has been reduced or the scientific justification exceeds two pages will also be withdrawn. It is advised to follow the instructions described in the following link: http://cat.iac.es/cat/ayuda_latex.jsp
  • For more information see http://www.iac.es/cat/pages/cat-nocturno/en/