SOAR 2018B Proposals

Submitted by jelias on Fri, 2018-03-02 16:48

Proposals for observing time at SOAR are due at the end of March or early April for investigators from the SOAR partners. Details are summarized on the SOAR proposers' page; here we highlight a couple of significant changes to what is available.

• NOAO and Brazil are offering a limited amount of service observing for small proposals. The service is offered for a small set of popular Goodman spectrograph configurations. Details can be found through the proposers' page linked above. This is a new capability and will likely evolve for subsequent semesters based on demand and our operational experience.
• Some changes have been made to the Target of Opportunity policy, mostly in the form of clarification. Cross-partnership proposals are encouraged. See the proposers' page for the revised document.
• The aluminizing scheduled for November 2017 was postponed due to issues with the coating facility. (The scheduled shutdown time was re-scheduled for science.) We now plan to perform the work during 2018B, over a period of approximately 6 weeks starting in mid- to late-October.
• NEW INSTRUMENTS! We expect to be commissioning both STELES (Brazilian facility echelle spectrograph) and TripleSpec 4.1 (ex-ARCOIRIS transported from the Blanco telescope). There is a good chance we will issue a call for science verification proposals for both instruments before the end of the year (STELES likely to be first). These calls will be posted on the SOAR web pages, but if you want to make sure you don't miss them, please contact the local instrument scientist (Andrei Tokovinin for STELES, Sean Points for TSpec 4.1; contact info here). We will post updated information in time for any call for SV proposals, but here is some useful information in advance for STELES and TSpec. (The STELES information is quite old, use with caution.)

Any questions about observing options at SOAR can be directed to me, or to other members of the support staff.

- Jay Elias