General Notes for Semester 09A

The deadline for submission of proposals is midnight, at the end of 15-Sep-2008 Hawaii Standard Time. The proposal system will come online on 1-Sep-2008 Hawaii Standard Time.

Instrument Blocks

Semester 09A will comprise of a single instrument block:

• Wide Field (WFCAM): start-February to end-July, 2009

It is anticipated that there will be approximately 18 WFCAM nights available for PATT projects and service time in semester 09A; service time normally runs at one night per month but can be varied by the TAG if they wish to fit in more full-scale projects.

The currently-projected WFCAM/Cassegrain schedule is available here: http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/schedule/Forwardlook.html.

Although UKIRT continues to be fully supported by STFC following the Programmatic Review, there are several possible operating scenarios from 09A onwards (see the statement here).  Time allocations for 09A will be honoured regardless of which scenario is selected.

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 09A WFCAM block running from February to July, 2009 (inclusive), we will accept targets from 4h through to 1h in RA (wrapped around).  Also, PIs should note that projects which can use less than optimal conditions tend to do well in the queue; “poor weather” proposals are encouraged.

Length and Origin of Proposals

UKIRT accepts submissions requesting anything from small (a few hours) to large (10 nights or more) amounts of time. Please note that UKIRT is an open telescope and accepts applications without restriction on country of origin. PIs with short projects (three hours or less) should also consider the UKIRT Service Programme.

Proposal Forms, Submission System and Integration Time Calculator (ITC)

Submissions for 09A will be via the Northstar proposal system. Should you wish to obtain a preview of the overall look and feel of this system before it comes on line in September, please see the UKIRT NorthStar primer. NorthStar has been in use for UKIRT Service submissions for several semesters, as well as for PATT semester 08B. The two submission systems are very similar.

PATT submissions for semester 09A will open on 1-Sep-2008 HST. The submission system will be accessible via the Applications page. The new UKIRT Integration Time Calculator (ITC) can now be used to estimate the required total integration times for WFCAM, UFTI, and UIST imaging proposals. It is available here.

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Instrumentation Available

WFCAM –  AVAILABLE FEBRUARY – JULY 2009

WFCAM is a wide field 0.8 – 2.5-micron camera covering a 0.75 square degree tile in 4 pointings. See http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/instruments/wfcam/ for details on the instrument and filter availability, and the General notes above for constraints on scheduling and proposals. WFCAM sensitivity estimates are available on the WFCAM instrument page, and via the integration time calculator.

WFCAM filters available for public use in semester 09A will be Z, Y, J, H, K, H2 1-0 S1 and narrowband H.

The Brackett gamma filter will not be available in semester 09A.