Semester 2011A Call For Proposals
You are here
Gemini Observatory invites its community to propose scientific investigations for the 2011A semester,
1 February 2011 - 31 July 2011. The Call is open to all partners.
The submission deadline is THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 30 2010.
Applications should be submitted via your national Gemini
proposal process. Submission times and other details vary by partner; please consult your National Gemini Office pages for more information. Multi-partner joint
proposals should be submitted by the deadline of the partner country to which the Principal Investigator is affiliated.
The purpose of this page is to highlight the most relevant information for the 2011A call. Significant additional information is contained on supporting pages; users are encouraged to follow the links for more detailed information. If hardcopy is preferred, the primary pages are available as a single pdf document.
GNIRS System Verification Call for Proposals Announced, October 4 2010
Gemini is now accepting proposals for system verification of GNIRS. This Call is separate from, and in addition to, the normal Call for Proposals for Semester 2011A. Twelve nights are available for the GNIRS SV, nominally eight in Semester 2010B and four in 2011A. Proposal submissions are due no later than MIDNIGHT, OCTOBER 25, 2010, Hawaii time. All observing modes are available, however certain modes need verification more than others. Guidelines are given in the SV Call.
IMPORTANT CHANGE IN GMOS-NORTH CAPABILITIES, SEPTEMBER 15 2010
The schedule for the upgrade of GMOS-North to use the new Hamamatsu detectors has become uncertain due to recently discovered technical problems. Contrary to the initial instructions for 11A, all applicants should assume the performance of the current E2V detectors when calculating exposure times.
Highlights for 2011A
General |
Relevant milestones for 2011A can be found in the 2011A schedule. The deadline for Phase I submission is
September 30 2010 (Poor weather and Director's Discretionary Time proposals are accepted at
any time via the Phase I Tool),
and for successful proposals the Phase II submission deadline is January 14 2011.
Both queue and classical Phase IIs must be submitted by this deadline. |
Target accessibility limits will be imposed, so as not to bias the queue at the start or end of the semester. The target accessibility limits for 2011A are, for Gemini North 4.0 < RA < 1.0 and -37 < dec < +79, and for Gemini South 5.0 < RA < 2.0 and -89 < dec < +28. There are additional constraints if a program requires unrestricted access (e.g. MOS observations requiring pre-imaging, long observations or observations with strict constraints), for LGS programs and for NIRI imaging programs at Gemini North. |
The community should note that the Observatory requires proposals which use the full range of observing conditions. This includes proposals that can use cloudy
CC90 conditions, which implies a loss of signal of between 30% (CC70) and a factor of 6.
|
New guidelines for Target of Opportunity (ToO) programs have been issued for 2011A by the Gemini Operations Working Group. Applicants are encouraged to read these prior to submitting a ToO proposal.
|
The Phase I Tool (PIT) is updated for 2011A; See the PIT page for downloads and important information. |
Gemini North |
It is expected that 88% of the semester will be available for science. This amounts to 159 nights and includes 4 nights for
GNIRS
Science Verification (GNIRS is also offered for the entire semester) and 1.5 nights for
GMOS-N CCD
demonstration science. These nights are distributed across the partnership. A list of instruments and capabilities is given below. |
The schedule for the upgrade of GMOS-N to use the new Hamamatsu red-sensitive CCDs has become uncertain due to recently discovered technical problems. Prospective users should assume the performance of the current E2V detectors when calculating exposure times. (Revised September 15 2010.) |
GNIRS is offered for 1-5 micron spectroscopy in 2011A, in all natural seeing and NGS adaptive optics modes. Laser guide star adaptive optics has not been commissioned with GNIRS and this mode is not offered at this time. Angular FWHM (along the spectrograph slit) may be limited to 0.20 arcsec (adaptive optics), 0.45 arcsec (JHK natural seeing), and 0.35 arcsec (LM natural seeing); see the GNIRS status page for more information. Commissioning is on-going and we encourage prospective users to read the instrument web pages carefully before submitting a proposal. |
Michelle will most likely only be available for two short periods at the start and end of the semester, depending on demand. |
NIRI
will be unavailable in June and July while it undergoes repair and refurbishment, and it is not available for spectroscopy throughout Semester 2011A. NIRI imaging programs need to be limited to targets with 4 < RA < 20 and -37 < dec < +79. |
Gemini South |
It is expected that 78% of the time will be
available for science use on Gemini South in 2011A. This amounts to 141 nights,
and includes 18 nights of NICI
campaign science which are distributed across the
partners that participate in the campaign. The final distribution of nights across the partnership is shown on the
time distribution page. A list of instruments and capabilities is given below. Given the available instrument suite, bright-time programs with relaxed observing condition constraints (e.g., SBAny, CC70, IQ85) are particularly encouraged. |
It is possible that access will need to be restricted for
NICI and/or T-ReCS
once the GSAOI and Flamingos-2 commissioning schedule is known and the demand is determined at the International Time Allocation Committee meeting.
|
For Semester 2011A NICI observations may be proposed for conditions as poor
as IQ70 and CC70. However, due to the greater risks involved and poorer performance delivered when observing in CC70, the following restrictions will be imposed for CC70 proposals:
|
Phoenix is not offered in Semester 2011A; effort will be made to complete all rollover programs before the instrument is removed. |
Exchange |
Up to 5 bright/gray
nights of classical time are available with the HIRES optical spectrograph
on Keck. The requested nights must be within the following windows
with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 2 nights in any one window:
February 10 - 23, April 10 - 22 and June 8 - 22. Proposals should be submitted via the normal
Gemini process. All proposers for Keck time must also complete the Keck cover page. Email this page
to your NTAC chair. [more
information] |
5 to 10 classical
nights are available on Subaru with
COMICS (mid-infrared camera and spectrograph),
FMOS a limited number of nights on a shared-risk basis for the low-resolution mode only (near-infrared fiber-fed multi-object spectrograph),
FOCAS (optical faint object camera and spectrograph),
HDS
(optical high dispersion spectrograph),
IRCS (infrared camera and spectrograph, with Natural Guide Star Adaptive Optics capability),
MOIRCS
(near-infrared imager and multi-object spectrograph) and
Suprime-Cam (wide field optical imager).
The Subaru nights will be distributed across bright, grey and dark
periods with typically 2 or 3 nights in each of these moon phases,
depending on the total number of nights allocated. A minimum of 1 and a
maximum of 4 nights can be requested in the following windows only: bright - April 12-21, May 12-21, June 10-20, July 9-19; grey - April 7-11, May 7-10, June 5-8, July 4-8; dark - Feb 28 to March 7, or March 30 to April 5. The final schedule is dependent on allocation and instrument availability. Proposals should be submitted via the normal Gemini process. [more information] |
Additional Information
Details of the capabilities available at each Gemini telescope are given below. Please see the page of supporting information for additional general information.
Gemini North: Facilities
|
Gemini South: Facilities
|
Questions and Answers
All questions concerning proposals, or any other subject, should be
made using the Gemini
HelpDesk. This web-based
system will send the request to your National Gemini Office staff in
the first instance
who will then escalate it to Gemini staff if necessary.
Comments and suggestions on the format
and content of this page and supporting pages are welcome, and should be sent
to Sandy Leggett.