Writing an Observing Proposal

AST 311

Telescope Facilities• Space telescopes: annual proposals

– Hubble, Spitzer, Herschel, SOFIA, Chandra, etc– heaviest oversubscription: 4 – 8 x– approved programs are funded by NASA

• National O/IR telescopes: semi-annual proposals– NOAO (multiple 0.9 – 4 m telescopes, north + south), Gemini (8.2 m

north + south), IRTF (3.0 m)– A and B observing semesters; Mar/Apr, Sep/Oct deadlines– oversubscription: 1 – 5 x– some travel funding only

• National radio telescopes: proposals 2 or 3 times / year– VLA, ALMA (interferometers), Arecibo (300 m), GBT (100 m)– oversubscription: 1 – 10 x– some travel and research funding

• Private observatories (e.g., Palomar 5 m, Keck 10mx2): semi-annual proposals– guaranteed institutional time– oversubscription: 1 – 2 x– no funding

Observing Modes

• Flux measurements, detection:– use imaging cameras on O/IR telescopes– use single-dish radio telescopes

• Resolved imaging:– use high spatial resolution imaging techniques– use adaptive optics, O/IR/radio interferometry

• Spectroscopy– use spectrographs of various spectral resolutions

(50 < /∆ < 500,000)

Telescope Proposals• Submitted 1 – 3 times / year, following

announcements of opportunity (AO)– read AO carefully on instrument availability and

capability• Between 4–10 pages• Evaluated by Time Allocation Committees

(TAC; national or institutional)– each proposal gets read in detail by at least 2

people: primary + secondary reviewer– each proposal gets discussed and evaluated by

the entire TAC (6 – 8 people)• Top-ranked proposals are awarded time

Idea

• Generate one• Check what the required telescope

capabilities are• See if and where these

capabilities exist• Check if similar observations were already

taken– large facilities often have data archives

• Choose appropriate targets• Apply for telescope time

Proposal Structure

• Cover sheet• Scientific justification, 1–4 pp.

– describe the science case

• Technical justification, 1–2 pp.– describe implementation of experiment

• Figures, tables, references• Object list

Scientific Justification

• “Good proposals include some background on the subject you are studying, in particular why anyone not in your specific field should care. Then you can explain what exactly you want to do, and why it will solve every problem left in astronomy and find a cure for the common cold. Adding good figures and tables almost always makes a proposal stronger and easier to understand for the reviewers.”

(Spitzer Space Telescope Science Center)

Technical Justification

• Describe the details of your planned observations, scheduling constraints, data analysis plans and how the technical plans were validated.

• Include your estimate of the brightness of your targets. Based on those brightness estimates, include your estimate and justification of what SNR values you need to accomplish your science.– online exposure time calculators can help

Dos and Don’ts

• Do read all relevant instrument and telescope manuals before proposing

• Do contact any instrument contact person before the deadline with questions

• Do write for a general scientific, but non- specialist audience

• Do use figures to vividly exemplify the most prominent or advanced concepts

• Do list your targets in a table, and estimate exposure times for each target

Dos and Don’ts

• Do not play with the margins or fonts.This annoys the reviewers.Unusual fonts do not render on all systems.

• Don't change the font size of the major headers either – large section header fonts make the proposal easier to scan.

• Don't change the proposal format, really. Every section has a purpose. Don't renumber or reorder them.

More Proposal Resources

•A sample NOAO telescope proposal:

www.noao.edu/noaoprop/help/sample.pdf

Baker Observatory Standard Facilities

• 4-5 8-inch computer controlled (CPC) telescopes• One SBIG ST-I+spectrograph with R~100 available• 4-5 SBIG ST-I monochromatic imagers available:

• https://www.sbig.com/products/cameras/specialty/st-i/• 640x480 pixels, low read noise• Sensitivity: not measured yet (so stay bright, or can propose to

characterize)• Field of view: not measured yet (can propose to characterize), expected

to be a few arc-minutes• Have auto-guider capability to work with CPC telescopes, not yet tested

• Standard Johnson BVR filters available - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photometric_system

• plus planetary filters – red, green, blue, yellow: http://oneminuteastronomer.com/683/lunar-planetary-filters/

Baker Observatory Optional Facilities

• 16-inch robotic telescope (BORAT) with ANDOR camera by permission of Dr. Reed only. For questions regarding this setup and permission to propose to use it, contact Dr. Reed.

• 16-inch telescope equipped with older camera, but likely better field of view and sensitivity. Requires assistance from a trained 16-inch telescope operator (Dr. Patterson, Reed, Plavchan, Shannon, Joe, Josh?).

• Caution: proposals to use these facilities must be justified – why is a 16” telescope required compared to the 8” telescopes?

Fall 2015B semester – Things to consider

• Be careful about the RA and Dec range of your targets – make sure they are visible from Baker at this time of year.

• In terms of Solar System objects, Saturn is easy to observe now in the evening, but by October will be setting close to sunset. Venus, Mars and Jupiter are early morning targets this fall, so require going to Baker before dawn by permission only. I haven’t checked if you can observe Uranus, Neptune, Pluto asteroids in the Solar System (like Ceres, Vesta)

• How are you going to reduce the data that you acquire? We will talk about reducing images and spectra in this course, but please give some idea.

• Remember: Your fellow students will read and rank your proposals. This is a competition. You can have a Co-Investigator on your proposal, but everyone is required to submit a proposal.

• How much telescope time are you going to need? For setup, to take your data? What if the weather is bad? Are you going to need more time?

Possible proposal concepts• Detect the transit of a Jovian exoplanet, in one wavelength band

or several.• Measure the age of a cluster via an H-R diagram• Measure the spectral type of a star with photometry and/or

spectroscopy• Measure the radii of two stars in an eclipsing binary• Characterize the performance of the St-I cameras and

spectrograph – sensitivity, field of view, etc.• Characterize the guiding performance of the ST-I auto-guider

(may want to consult with Claire Geneser)• Measure the redshift of a galaxy• Measure the angular size of a galaxy• Use your images for tracking the position of a planet or asteroid

(possibly with astrometry.net)• Verify Kepler’s 3rd Law for Jupiters Galilean moons• Measure the spectrum of a planet and infer its composition• Multicolor image of planetary nebula

What next?• Once every proposal has been submitted, I will send

out proposals for you all to read. All of you are required to read and rank the other student proposals BEFORE the time allocation committee meeting. This is called a preliminary ranking.

Proposal Evaluation Criteria

• Merit of the scientific justification:– does the (PI) present a convincing case for the significance of the

experiment?– is the proposed experimental approach well-motivated and

sound?– does the PI make effective use of figures and tables?

• Merit of the technical justification:– is the requested time and equipment adequate for the

experiment?– does the PI include relevant target brightness or signal-to-noise ratio

estimates?– is the described data gathering and analysis plan reasonable?

• What are the major and minor strengths and weaknesses?

Preliminary Grades to assign

• Excellent• Excellent/Very Good• Very Good• Very Good / Good• Good• Good / Fair• Fair• Fair/Poor• Poor

Summary Evaluation DefinitionsA) Basis for Summary EvaluationB) Relationship of Summary Eval. to Potential for Selection

ExcellentA )A thorough and compelling proposal of exceptional merit that fully responds to the proposal call as documented by numerous or significant strengths and a lack of major weaknesses.B) Top priority for selectionVery GoodA) A competent proposal of high merit that fully responds to the proposal call, whose strengths fully outbalance any weaknesses, and none of whose weaknesses constitute a fatal flaw.B) Second priority for selectionGoodA) A competent proposal that represents a credible response to the proposal call, whose strengths and weaknesses essentially balance.May be selected as time permitsFairA) A proposal that provides a nominal response to the proposal call but whose weaknesses outweigh any strengths.Not selectable regardless of the availability of time.PoorA) A seriously flawed proposal having one or more major weaknesses that constitute a fatal flaw.B) Not selectable regardless of the availability of time.

Get brainstorming and writing!