The Gemini Phase I Proposal Tool

The Gemini Phase I Tool (PIT) can be used for proposal preparation and submission to all of the Gemini partner countries. Please check the partner-specific instructions maintained by your National Gemini Office (e.g. by following the links in the Phase I overview) to check on the correct procedure for your country.

The PIT is a Java program that must be loaded onto a local computer (it is not a webform). Best performance is achieved by installing the PIT on individual machines although some institutions may prefer a site installation if they have adequate network resources. See the installation instructions for further details.

A new version of PIT has been released for semester 2012B. Please read the brief summary of new policies, features, and improvements described in the Hot News page including :

• Completely redesigned interface
• Text sections (eg. science justification) are written using LaTeX or Word tempates and attached to the proposal as a PDF
• Guide star evaluation is automatic and no guide stars need to be entered
• Automatic GSA duplication checks
• Proposal documents (xml files) are not compatile with previous versions

Proposals for 2012A poor weather and director's discretionary time must use the PIT for semester 2012A.

As in recent semesters all joint proposals must be submitted through the PIT. Backend servers installed at all partners' National Offices allow automatic electronic submission to multiple partners at the same time. 

The help pages for the 2012B PIT tabs are accessible via the contents list in the panel to the left. Context-sensitive help for the 2012A PIT is built into the 2012A PIT. A cookbook for using the 2012A PIT is also available.

Each Gemini partner country runs its own Phase I proposal process and may use any mechanism for internal proposal submission and assessment. To ensure that all the National TAC-recommended proposals are transmitted to Gemini Observatory in a common format, XML(eXtensible Markup Language) has been adopted for encoding the proposal information. This is a powerful and flexible way of capturing the minimum essential information required by the National Gemini Offices (for their Phase I technical assessment), the National and International TACs (for scientific assessment and scheduling) and for subsequent ingestion into databases at Gemini Observatory (e.g. for Phase II detailed observation definition).The PIT automatically writes proposals in the correct XML format. It is not necessary for proposers to understand this file format but, for those who are interested, a current description and updated XML DTD (document type definition) files are available in a document package on the Gemini software site