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JMU TAG Call For Proposals for Semester 2008A

1500 BST 24 October 2007 Time available and deadline

The deadline for submission has been extended to 16 November 2007 due to a current undersubscription for JMU time allocation in 08A. The time available to eligible applicants allocated by the next JMU-TAG meeting will be a minimum of 75 hours for 08A (i.e. not including overallocation).

Proposal process
Applications are submitted in two phases:

  • Phase 1 proposals are sent to the TAG outlining the science case for observation
    • See here for instructions on how to prepare and submit your Phase 1 proposal.
    • Please note the requirement to specify a "minimum usable fraction" (see below).
  • Phase 2 is the observation specification phase. Successful proposals are entered into the observing queue with one of three rankings:
    • A: High priority programme. The TAC would like to see 100% completion of the observations.
    • B: Medium priority programme. The TAC would like to see at least the MUF (Minimum Usable Fraction) of observations obtained, provided this does not impact of the completion of priority A programmes.
    • C: Low priority programmes. These programmes are used to over-subscribe the observing queue so that the telescope is not idle. If observations are started for a programme then the scheduling software should aim to obtain at least the MUF of the observations, but not at the expense of 100% completion of priority A or B programmes. There is generally additional time available for band C programmes, spread equally across all observing conditions.

Instrument availability
The instruments available are RATCam, SupIRCAM, RINGO and the Meaburn spectrograph (with a possibility of switching to FRODOspec).

  • RATCam is an optical CCD camera with a 4.6 x 4.6 arcmin field of view (0.135 arcsec/pixel unbinned).
  • SupIRCam is an infrared camera operating at J or H band with a 1.7 x 1.7 arcmin field of view (0.4 arcsec/pixel).
  • RINGO is an optical polarimeter (4600-7200 AA at FWHM) that can measure polarization on timescales of ~10s.
  • Meaburn spectrometer is a low dispersion spectrograph, using an input array consisting of 7 x 7 fibres (1.7 arcsecond): coverage of 3500-7000 AA in 4 wavelength ranges at ~4 AA resolution. (There is a possibility of proposals making use of FRODOspec if it becomes available but proposals should be able to use the Meaburn.)

RINGO and Meaburn are considered to be expert user instruments. Potential users should contact the LT Support Astronomer, Chris Moss directly, at: to discuss the capability of the instrument and feasibility of the observing programme before submitting an observing proposal.

Telescope performance
  • The current rms pointing of the LT is 6 arcsec.
  • The current tracking performance provides seeing-limited images (FWHM < 0.8 arcsec) for exposures up to 1 minute without the auto-guider (open loop) and up to 30 minutes with the auto-guider (closed loop). Individual exposures with the auto-guider are limited to 30 minutes.

Ivan Baldry
LT JMU TAG chair