December Call for Proposals

Gemini North and South are accepting proposals for the Fast Turnaround (FT) program. Here, we give information specific to this proposal cycle. Please see the other FT pages - particularly the rules - for general information about the program.

1. Important dates
   • Proposal deadline: 23:59, Hawaiian Standard Time (HST), December 31.
   • Reviews must be complete by 23:59 HST, January 14;
   • Results will be announced by January 21;
   • The deadline for preparing observations will be Feb 01. Observations will remain valid until the end of April;
   • FT observations will be merged with the queue and observed on queue nights. They will not be scheduled only on specific Fast Turnaround nights as was done previously.


2. Eligibility
   • PIs from all participant countries taking part in the FT program may apply for this cycle.
   • PIs from participant countries whose FT time for the semester has been used up should not apply for the remainder of the semester. Currently no participants have reached their limit. See the rules and Q&A for more information.


3. Acceptable RA ranges
   • Targets from RA~2 hrs to ~19.5 hrs can be accepted during this cycle. Note that RAs near 2 will only be accessible for a few hours during the first month (February). RAs near 19.5 will only be accessible for a few hours during the final month (April).


4. Available instruments and observing modes
   • Gemini North and South are now participating in the FT program.
   • The 16A instrument schedules are not yet available. We will update this call as soon as we have this information, probably around the middle of the month. In the meantime, here is some preliminary information:
   • Gemini North
   • GMOS, GNIRS, NIRI, and NIFS (including Altair NGS and LGS for the latter three) will be available during this FT period. See the 2016A telescope schedule for full details. Note that the GRACES runs in early February and late March/early April will prevent the use of the GMOS-N IFU during those periods.
   • A limited amount of GRACES time may be available for FT programs.
   • Gemini South
   • GMOS-S and Flamingos-2 will be available during this FT block, as will a limited amount of GPI time. GeMS+GSAOI is not offered. See the 2016A telescope schedule for information about instrument availability.
   • Both telescopes
   • Please contact the FT team (fast dot turnaround at gemini dot edu) with questions about GPI and GRACES availability.
   • FT observations may not be executed during classical, priority visitor (PV) and Korean blocks, depending on the prevailing conditions.
   • For GMOS proposals, please indicate whether your program could be carried out with either GMOS (North or South).
   • The R600 grating in both GMOS instruments is not offered for FT (or regular queue) observations.
   • MOS observations are now available for FT, subject to some caveats/restrictions
   • As discussed in the rules and Q&A, please contact the Fast Turnaround team in advance of the deadline if you would like to propose for an unusual instrument configuration or observing mode.


5. Time available
   • 20 hrs per month at each telescope is available for FT observations. Very roughly, this implies:
     • i. 4 hrs of 20%-ile conditions (IQ=20, for example; see this web page)
     • ii. 10 hrs of 50%-ile conditions
     • iii. 14 hrs of 70%-ile conditions
     • iv. 17 hrs of 85%-ile conditions
   • PIs may propose for up to roughly the amount of time in their most restrictive observing conditions (see the rules).


6. PIT information
   • Proposals must be submitted using the version of the Phase I Tool specified on this web page (in the "Time Requests" tab, select Fast Turnaround Observing at Gemini as the proposal class).
   • In the Time Requests tab, select "Fast Turnaround Observing at Gemini" as the proposal class and specify the reviewer (and mentor, if appropriate). Note that this is where the reviewer is defined; changes cannot be made after the proposal has been submitted.
   • We have created new, shorter Latex/Word templates for FT proposals (GemPhase1_FT.tex/doc). We encourage users to use these new templates. Participants using the old templates will not be penalized this month (as long as they stick to the page limits), but we do plan to make the FT template compulsory in the New Year.
   • Submitting the same proposal more than once during a given cycle (e.g. after correcting/editing a submitted version) should be avoided if at all possible.


7. Changes to rules/policies since last CfP
   • None