Fundación Galileo Galilei - INAF Telescopio Nazionale Galileo 28°45'14.4N 17°53'20.6W 2387.2m A.S.L.

AOT 40 TNG REM Call for Proposal. Deadline Monday May 20th, 2019

CALL FOR PROPOSALS TNG and REM
also featuring NOT time

AOT 40 (2019B) is now open for proposals.
Applications for observing time for the periods

November 1st, 2019 - March 31st, 2020 (TNG)

October 1st, 2019 - March 31st, 2020 (REM and NOT)

are solicited and should be submitted by
Monday, 20th May, 2019, 12:00 UT.

After 8 years, the aluminizing of the TNG mirrors is scheduled during the whole month of October 2019. Therefore, only five months are available in AOT40. The number of nights allocated to ongoing programs and international calls have been reduced consequently.

The available time offered at TNG via INAF-TAC is 10 (ten) nights in this call. This offer can be increased if not all the nights assigned to other calls will be effectively allocated by the respective TACs. The foreseen schedule breakdown is reported at the bottom.

We will be accepting (few) Directory Discretionary Time proposals during the whole semester (http://www.tng.iac.es/observing/director_time_policy.html), which will be judged by the TNG staff in few days. These observations will be performed in Service Mode only.

TNG is a 3.58-m optical/infrared telescope located at Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory in the island of La Palma (Canary Islands). Its primary mirror is corrected by Active Optics and it is equipped with instruments for imaging and spectroscopy, spanning the optical and near infrared wavelengths range.
The offered instruments are: HARPS-N, NICS, DOLORES and GIANO-B (GIANO in Nasmyth B).
The observing mode GIARPS, simultaneously combining HARPS-N and GIANO-B, is also offered (see below).
For details, visit http://www.tng.iac.es

REM is a 60-cm robotic telescope located at La Silla ESO site (Chile) which can observe simultaneously with a visible and an infrared camera. The observations will be carried out in unmanned, queuing mode. INAF-TAC will allocate 1000 hours of observations.
REM is equipped with ROS2 visible camera and REMIR infrared camera. The two are observing simultaneously thanks to a dichroic.
ROS2 will produce simultaneous images in the four Sloan-like passbands g, r, i, z. Charged time is therefore not the sum of ROS2 and REMIR, but the greater between the two.
For details, see http://www.rem.inaf.it

NOT is a 2.56-m telescope, also located at Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, next to the TNG. Offered instruments are ALFOSC (UV-optical imaging, polarimetry and low-resolution spectroscopy), NOTCam (NIR imaging, polarimetry and low-resolution spectroscopy), FIES (High-resolution, high-stability optical spectroscopy), MOSCA (High-resolution, high-efficiency UV-optical imaging), STANCam (Standby CCD imager).
For details, see http://www.not.iac.es
The Italian community can request up to 16 (sixteen) nights on the basis of the exchange time agreement (see below).

FORMS

Application forms and detailed instructions can be downloaded from the TNG web pages (http://www.tng.iac.es/submit.html).

Further important information for the proposal preparation is reported at http://barolo.tng.iac.es/call/info.html

All proposals will be judged strictly on their scientific merit.

NOTICE FOR AOT 40

LARGE AND LONG-TERM PROGRAMS at TNG

Large-Program and Long-Term proposals cannot be submitted answering the AOT40 call. In particular, a Long-Term program on the optical counterparts of gravitational wave events is already running at TNG. Therefore, proposals on this topic will not be accepted anymore. Moreover, objects included in the TNG Protected Target List (http://www.tng.iac.es/observing/protected.html) cannot be requested.

The PIs of ongoing Large Programs are not requested to send a progress report in this call.

The new GRIS-U grism

We remind the offer of a new grism, GRIS-U, started in AOT39. We explicitely note that the GRIS-U setup can be requested for pilot studies requiring few hours of observations.

The new grism GRIS-U is an innovative VPHG-based dispersing element able to separate overlapped orders and then cover the range 0.36-1.0 micron with a single exposure. Such an extended range is usually forbidden due to the overlap of the diffraction orders. Therefore multiexposures in narrow ranges are used in conventional devices.

Conversely, the new grism GRIS-U behaves as a sort of echellette, so two spectra appear simultaneously on the detector, one related to the first diffraction order (red part of the spectrum) and one to the second order (blue part). Mounted at the TNG inside the DOLORES instrument, it is able to provide a resolving power R ~ 500.

A more detailed description of GRIS-U is reported at http://www.tng.iac.es/instruments/lrs/grisu.html

The observational mode GIARPS at TNG

The light from the telescope is split into visible and infrared domains by means of a dichroic. The former feeds as usual HARPS-N, the latter is beamed into the new preslit of GIANO-B. The slit of GIANO-B is directly feed through a new optical relay instead of the previous fiber fed preslit. For efficiency and for overheads, please use the old GIANO page and recipe to prepare your proposals. They will serve as upper limit.

For those proposals wishing to use the dual GIARPS mode, please tick both HARPS-N and GIANO-B boxes in the submission form, and state it clearly in the text. Proponents must also report the respective total HARPS-N and GIANO-B observing times. The greater value will constitute the effective time request of the proposal.

GIARPS is offered in shared risk, best effort basis. As a backup solution, please indicate the preferred instrument.

NATIONALITY RESTRICTIONS APPLY

INAF-TAC is receiving only Italian proposals for TNG, defined as PI and at least half of participants being affiliated to an Italian Institution. Non-Italian proposals should be submitted following the OPTICON TransNational Access program. Special treatment is given to Nordic countries as explained in the next item.
The Nationality restriction does not apply to REM proposals.

COMMON OFFER FOR OBSERVING TIME TNG-NOT

The astronomical communities of Italy, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden may apply for reserved observing time offered jointly on the TNG and NOT telescopes. Rules for applicants may be found here.

Accordingly, Italian scientists can submit normal observing proposals to the NOT, and vice versa. Nordic astronomers will have access to 8 TNG nights; proposals will be evaluated by the INAF-TAC. Italian astronomers will have access to 16 nights with the NOT telescope; proposals will be evaluated by the NOT-OPC. Applicants must use the proposal form for the telescope they are requesting.

INAF staff and Associates will benefit of the same FGG funding scheme as for TNG observations.

AOT 40 TIME BREAKDOWN

For sake of completness, we report the foreseen TNG-time breakdown for the five months available in the AOT40 semester:

  • 39 nights ongoing INAF Large Programs
  • 3 nights ongoing INAF Long Term Programs
  • 33 nights Harps-N Consortium GTO
  • 26 nights Spanish CAT
  • 10 nights OPTICON H2020 TransNational Access
  • 7 nights CCI International Time Program
  • 8 nights TNG-NOT joint call (this call)
  • 10 nights for the INAF-TAC (this call)

REM available time is 1000 hours.

Ennio Poretti

Director
Telescopio Nazionale Galileo