Review of 2012-1 Proposals

Over 147 proposals were submitted for the recently closed call for the first semester of 2012 .  The first one in was by SALT Astronomer Alexei Kniazev and the last one in was by SALT Board President Ted Williams from Rutgers University.   A total of 1588 hours were requested from 950 available hours.  Over 102 different Principle Investigators submitted proposals from 33 different institutes, including 7 different South African institutes. 

There were 134 proposals requesting RSS observations and 22 requesting SALTICAM 

observations.  Over 167 different RSS configurations were requested:  2 Imaging, 8 Fabry-Perot, 

23 Multi-Object Spectroscopy, and 134 long slit configurations.    In these proposals, a wide range of

different objects are targeted including  568 different galaxies, 524 stars, 27 comets,  54 planetary 

nebula, 18 emission line nebula, 16 clusters of galaxies, and 7 objects of unknown nature. 

The proposals are currently under technical review by the SALT staff.   They will then move to the 
telescope allocation committees at each partner for scientific review.   The allocations of times 
should be announced around the 1st of April with the next semester starting on 1st May.    

2012 Semester 1 Call for Proposals

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to inform you that we are now accepting SALT Phase 1
proposals for the period 1 May - 31 Oct 2012 (2012 Semester 1). The
Phase 1 proposal deadline will be Friday 17 Feb at 18:00 SAST
(corresponding to 16:00 UTC). Please note that this proposal call is
for both SALTICAM and RSS, but with some modes (primarily MOS) still
on a "best efforts" basis (i.e. no guarantees regarding performance
or completion) or are not available at all (e.g. all polarimetric modes).

We have produced a comprehensive information document for all proposers
where we have attempted to update the current performance status of the
telescope and instruments. In addition the PIPT Simulation tools have
also been revised to reflect the current actual performance of the
instruments, as determined from commissioning and 2011 Semester 2
observations. Additional information and links to relevant webpages or
documents are also included to assist proposers in writing their Phase 1
applications.

The review process is due to be completed by 30 March, at which point
proposers will be informed of the results of their applications. Those
successful applicants will then have ~4 weeks to complete their detailed
Phase 2 proposals in time for the beginning of the Semester (deadline 27
April).

Please submit your proposal via the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal
Tool (PIPT).  Instructions, software, and other information about
proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website.

Call for Proposals, including link to information document:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/2012-semester-1-call-for-proposals/

Instructions for submitting your proposal:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/proposing-for-salt-observations/phase-i-proposal-instructions/

Download the PIPT software:
https://www.salt.ac.za/wm/

All questions regarding this proposal call should be address to
salthelp(at)salt.ac.za

Sincerely,

David Buckley
SALT Astronomy Operations Manager on behalf of the SALT Astronomy
Operations Team

Proposal Summary

SALT received 176 proposals asking for a total of 1888 hours from only 662 hours being available. The proposals included 317 different investigators from 21 different countries spread over 88 different institutions. The first proposal in was from Mathew Schurch from University of Cape Town and the last official entry was from Brent Miszalski at SAAO--submitted just 5 seconds prior to the deadline.

The proposals asked a wide range of science questions: From looking at near-earth asteroids to high redshift galaxies. Over 45% of the proposals were asking to look at stars or other stellar sources, 60% of the proposals were looking at sources in our own galaxy or its satellites, and the remaining proposals were looking at extragalactic sources. Of the proposals, we have two looking at asteroids in the solar system, 12 looking at white dwarf stars, 21 looking at binary stars, 7 looking at different types of nebula, and over 30 proposals investigating black holes in either our own galaxy or others. In addition, we have 9 proposals looking at sueprnova, 11 proposals researching AGN, 11 looking at galaxy clusters, and 6 were looking at galaxies when the Universe was only a few billion years old.

The telescope allocation committees at each partner have now done their job and awarded time to the proposals for the coming semester. The notifications have been sent out and it is now on to the next stage of the process where investigators of successful proposals will complete the details of their observations and prepare for the coming semester.

How Many Proposals?

Curious about how many SALT proposal there will be? Well you can follow along here to see how many proposal we have received! It will be updated once an hour up until the proposal deadline. Any guesses for what the final value will be?

First Proposal!

Congratulations to Matthew Schurch and collaborators for getting in the first SALT proposal for the coming semester. Allocated lucky PROPID of 2011-3-RSA_UKSC-001, they are in a week before the proposal call! Just remember, proposals are due next Friday, 15 July at Midnight!

SALT Proposal Call

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to inform you that we are now accepting SALT proposals for the period 1 Sep 2011 to 28 Feb 2012 (2011 Semester 2). Please note that this proposal call is for both SALTICAM and RSS on a "best efforts" basis (i.e. no guarantees regarding performance or completion). Observing time for this call will be charged to all SALT partners, who will have observing allocations in proportion to their shareholding.

The proposal deadline for this period is 15 July, 2011 at Midnight SAST.

Please submit your proposal via the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal Tool (PIPT).  Instructions, software, and other information about proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website.

Call for Proposals:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/current-call-for-proposals/

Instructions for Submitting your Proposal:
http://www.salt.ac.za/observing/proposing-for-salt-observations/phase-i-proposal-instructions/

Download the PIPT Software:
https://www.salt.ac.za/wm/

Sincerely,
The SALT Astronomy Operations Team

Announcement of forthcoming call for SALT proposals for semester 2, 2011

While commissioning is still continuing with SALT and its first-light instruments, progress is good and we are confident that by the time the Semester 2 observations will begin that the major instrument modes for both RSS and SALTICAM will have been successfully commissioned and their performances will be well characterized. This is an ongoing process and as we obtain information on performance characteristics, these will be posted on the SALT website.


The following is a summary of the SALT Board decisions in regard to the forthcoming proposal call for 2011 Semester 2:

---

1.    This proposal call is for both SALTICAM and RSS on a "best efforts" basis (i.e. no guarantees regarding performance or completion). Depending on the progress with commissioning, some instrument modes may not yet be fully characterized before the proposal submission deadline (15 July).

2.    Observing time for this call will be charged to all SALT partners, who will have observing allocations in proportion to their shareholding.

3.    We expect that RSS Long Slit spectroscopy (LS) to be fully commissioned by the time of the call (30 June) and significant progress to have been made on Fabry-Perot imaging spectroscopy (FP) and Multi Object Spectroscopy (MOS). However, some of the RSS instrument modes (nod & shuffle, polarimetry, high speed) will only be commissioned later and possibly extending into Semester 2.

4.    For SALTICAM proposals, we expect all instrument modes to be available, although probably not all will be fully characterized by the time of the call.

5.    SALTICAM science commissioning and verification is on-going. While there are some existing proposals selected for this purpose, we are happy to consider ad-hoc SALTICAM proposals at any time, if they exercise particular instrument capabilities not covered by existing accepted commissioning proposals. New commissioning proposals (which are not charged) should be focused on delivering a quick definitive result that aids the commissioning. All such observations will be expected to be completed before the beginning of Semester 2.
Please contact the Astronomy Operations Director, David Buckley, or the instrument PI, Darragh O'Donoghue, in this regard.

6.    The call for 2011 Semester 2 (1 Sep - 28 Feb) observing proposals opens on 30 JUNE 2011.

The Phase I proposal tool will then be available for PIs to complete and submit proposals. Note that the Phase I proposals will contain mainly information for the Time Assignment Committees (TACs) and no details on the instrument set up or observing details need to be completed at this time. The Phase I tool will allow users to enter the basic proposal information (e.g. names, affiliations, conditions, targets, instruments, time requested). In addition several text inputs are required, which includes:
a.    scientific rationale (<1000 words; optional for some TACs)
b.    immediate objectives (<250 words; mainly to assist the SALT Astronomer)
c.    technical justification (<500 words)

While the Phase I proposal tool will not be available for release until 30 June (following thorough testing), those interested in submitting a proposal can complete the text components (as PDFs) at any time and include them in the final submission later.

7.    The deadline for Phase I submission is 15 JULY 2011 (i.e. 2 weeks from the proposal call).

Following submission, the proposals will be forwarded to the respective partner TACs, together with summary and statistical information (e.g. total times requested, conditions requested, target distributions).

8.    The TACs will complete their assessments and assign time to the proposals by 7 AUGUST 2011.

This information is sent back to SALT Astronomy Operations and PIs will be informed of their time allocations.

9.    The Phase II proposal process begins following the TAC decisions. PIs will then use the Phase II proposal tool to define in detail the required instrument configurations, and observing details (observing blocks, etc), for their observations.

10.    The Phase II proposals should to be submitted by 31 AUGUST 2011 for observations to be scheduled for Semester 2 which begins in September.

11.    For this first ever semester of charged science time, it is requested that PIs consider keeping their proposals simple and less ambitious.