Response to the first call for proposals

The first Fast Turnaround (FT) proposal deadline passed on Saturday (January 31), and elicited an enthusiastic response. We received 19 unique proposals, requesting a total of 66 hours. This represents an oversubscription factor of about 3.3, given the ~20 hours that we expect to allocate to FT programs (3 nights/month minus typical weather losses). Two proposals had to be excluded from the review process from the outset. One was not affiliated with any of the participating Gemini partners, while the other requested instrumentation at Gemini South; neither of these options is available during the initial FT trial period.

By far the most proposals were submitted by PIs affiliated with US institutions. Others came from Canada, Brazil, and the University of Hawai’i. Four proposals named PhD students as reviewers, who will be guided by designated PhD mentors.

The proposals vary in length from 0.6 - 9.9 hours, with all but one asking for 6 hours or less. The majority are for single-object studies, although one proposal requests observations of 12 different targets. Many different scientific fields are represented, from near-Earth asteroids to galaxies at z~5. Reasons for using the FT program are equally varied. Several PIs wish to obtain data to complete a thesis or get the last pieces of data needed to complete a paper, or to compensate for an observing run lost to poor weather at another telescope. Others are conducting pilot observations or gathering information for upcoming standard proposals. A handful of proposals will complement multi-wavelength monitoring campaigns, or are simply for topics of interest to their PI right now.

Proposers have been rather optimistic about the weather conditions on the scheduled FT nights, with 13/17 proposals asking for clear skies and good seeing. Between them, the 13 proposals asking for GMOS have requested all six of the instrument’s gratings; perhaps fortunately, only one of the two possible IFU configurations is needed. All of Gemini North's other instruments are also requested: NIRI (2 proposals), GNIRS (2), and NIFS+LGS AO (1). Once the proposals have been reviewed, the FT support team will create the final list of accepted proposals. We will stay as close as possible to the scientific rankings while also taking into account technical feasibility, the limited number of grating slots in GMOS, the target RA distribution, instrument and dark time availability, etc. Given the diversity of the proposals received, we expect that this will be an interesting time.

The proposals were distributed to reviewers ~12 hours after the proposal deadline, and their reviews are due on the 14th. Seven days are then allotted for the selection process described above, and the first FT nights are scheduled for March 9-11. The FT team was happy to see such a positive response to the first call for proposals, and greatly appreciates the efforts of the participating PIs and reviewers.