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 produced for semester 2011A. Please read the brief summary of new policies, features, and improvements described in the Hot News page including :

• UCAC3 guide star queries have been added
• FMOS has been added to the Subaru instruments list
• PIT now uses the current version of Java (Java 6). This change will be transparent to most users. However, the new PIT will not run on PowerPC Macintosh computers since Apple does not provide Java 6 for those machines. Also, users who either have first generation, 32bit, Intel Macs (Core Duo CPU from Jan - Sept 2006) or use OS X 10.4 (Tiger) on newer Macs will need to upgrade the OS to version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in order to obtain Java 6. Gemini will also provide a Linux virtual machine with the OT and PIT installed that will run on these older Intel Macs.

As in recent semesters all joint proposals must be submitted through PIT. Backend servers installed atall partners National Offices allow automatic electronic submission to multiple partners at the same time. Proposals written using older versions of PIT can be read into the new PIT however some information (e.g. instrument resources) may not be converted or will be missing.

The help pages for the various PIT tabs and features, accessible via the contents list in the panel to the left, are the same ones that are available within the PIT context-sensitive help. A cookbook for using PIT is also available.

Each Gemini partner country runs it's 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.

The Phase 1 Tool is the work of the Gemini Observatory Staff including:Shane Walker, Devin Dawson, Arturo Nunez, Nicolas Barriga, and Bryan Miller, and previous employees Lorraine Callahan, Darrell Denlinger, Kim Gillies, Phil Puxley, and Jim Wright, with some earlier work by Dayle Kotturi. The help pages were written by Colin Aspin, Bryan Miller, Phil Puxley and Claudia Winge.