2009A Proposals

Oxford SWIFT spectrograph will be offered as a facility instrument at the Palomar 200 inch Hale telescope for the 2009A Semester. This is an I/z band integral field spectrograph built at Oxford by the SWIFT team, and 12 nights of observing time will be available to Oxford Physics for 2009A.

The 2009A semester runs from February through July 2009.

For those unaware of the instrument's capabilities and modes, please visit the tech specs page These specs are also reproduced at the Palomar web site at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/200inch/instruments.html under the yellow page for "Adaptive Optics + SWIFT"

At this time, I would like to request proposals for the Oxford SWIFT time allocation for the Palomar 200 inch for 2009A. All Oxford astrophysics staff, post-doctoral researchers, and post-graduate students who expect to be resident at Oxford in the 2009A semester are eligible to apply. Proposals should follow the format below:

The Palomar cover sheet (available here) must be filled out.

In addition, please include (a) a list of targets with RA-Dec and required time per target, (b) no more than 1 A4 page of scientific justification text (12 pt font), (c) no more than 1/2 an A4 page of technical justification text (12 pt font). In any case, please state explicitly if the proposal is part of a larger programme spanning several semesters and/or whether this is a thesis project.

The Palomar web page at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tac/obsforms/ provides a good description of the expected content.

Combine a PDF version of the filled-out Palomar cover sheet with the other sections of the proposal into a single PDF file and e-mail it to thatte@astro.ox.ac.uk by 12 noon local time (GMT+1) on Monday 6th October 2008, stating P200-09A-Your-last-name as the subject line. Please send only one proposal in each e-mail. All proposals received will be acknowledged within 48 hours, please contact me if you have not received an ack within that time.

Please note that the Palomar LGS system will NOT be available in 2009A.

Oxford Physics will run its own Time Allocation Committee comprising of Roger Davies (Chair), Lance Miller and Niranjan Thatte. We will forward successful proposals to Caltech for scheduling, who will then provide the PI with details of the allocated time. Please be as liberal as possible in designating acceptable observing runs, so as not to make life hard for the scheduler. The Palomar 200 inch is a PATT approved telescope, and standard PATT rules should be followed by anyone seeking to obtain support for observing travel. Oxford is required to send an observer for every night allocated to us at the 200 inch.

It is nominally expected that all requests will be for use of the Oxford SWIFT spectrograph, however, in exceptional cases, a proposal to use another instrument on the 200 inch will be entertained.

Please contact Susan Kassin if you have any queries about instrument performance, or contact me for any technical questions.