Telescope Access Program Call for Proposals
Semester 2021B
Proposal Deadline:
25 March 2021 17:00 China Standard Time
CFHT, P200: 1 August 2021 to 31 January 2022
TAP Overview for 2021B
The Telescope Access Program (TAP) is a program to give astronomers based in China direct access to competitive instrumentation on intermediate- and large-aperture optical/infrared telescopes. We estimate that the following amount of time will be available for new programs in the 2021B semester:
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (3.6m): 4-7 nights [August 2021 - January 2022]
Palomar Hale Telescope (5.1m, P200): 16-17 nights [August 2021 - January 2022]
* Information regarding LCOGT will be released soon in a separate call for proposals.
Notes for 2021B
- Given the COVID-19 pandemic, approved proposals are not guaranteed full execution. Proposals awarded 2020B/2021A time but not scheduled are encouraged to apply again.
- All proposals should be uploaded to tap.china-vo.org (user guide).
- CFHT proposals should be first submitted through CFHT’s Call for Proposal page: http://cfht.hawaii.edu/en/science/Proposals/.
- Palomar Cover Sheet must be generated and included in the uploaded proposal: https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/coo/solicit/2021B/C200.html
· If you or your PI have successful TAP proposals before, remember to add the relevant records to ‘My Report’ and ‘My Papers’ at tap.china-vo.org. Missing report in the past 3 years (from 2018.01) may result in deducted points from your proposal’s final evaluation.
- Near-infrared observations should request bright time. Any request for dark or gray time for near-infrared observations may cause the proposal to be rejected unless the request is justified explicitly with clear exposure time comparisons.
- CFHT nights are converted from instrument hours as follows: 1 night = 5.5 hrs MegaCam/SITELLE or 6.0 hrs WIRCam or 7.5 hrs ESPaDOnS.
- Please check the available instruments on the telescope sites before applying! Some instruments may not be available in the coming semester.
-------- Policy Update --------
Starting 2020A, TAP is employing a new time allocation policy, listed as follows:
- 90% of the time equivalent to the total funding will be allocated among member institutes: CAMS, XMU, PKU, THU, USTC, NJU, YNU & SYSU.
- The remaining 10% of the total time are open to all Chinese-based institutes.
Proposal Submission
TAP is now accepting observing proposals up until the deadline. The links below provide more information and TAP, the available facilities, proposal information (criteria, templates, examples), and TAP policies.
Proposals for CFHT time should be uploaded directly to the CFHT Northstar Proposal Tool, then downloaded the official version with proposal number and uploaded to tap.china-vo.org .
Proposals for the P200 should use the LaTeX proposal template. Please use the latest proposal template, available here: (zip). The proposal package contains a blank template, a .cls file, and an example proposal (version 1.3.1). Note that:
- Proposals for the P200 can be accessed through the COO solicitation information page.
- All student investigators should have their advisor email TAP to state their approval and support for the student's involvement.
· P200-CWI is a PI instrument and you will need to attach the PI’s approval along with your proposal to be fully considered.
- If scheduling a time constrained proposal (e.g., exoplanet transit), it is good to check with the observatory if the instrument being requested can be scheduled at that time.
- The TAC will expect to see updates on any previously approved TAP programs. Please include such updates in the proposal, if applicable. Any proposals that do not list the current status of previous allocations to investigators will be penalized.
- The completed proposal PDF file should be uploaded to tap.china-vo.org before the deadline.
- Please read the full instructions on the TAP website for submission instructions.
Advice for writing proposals
Four TAP workshops have been held at PKU/KIAA (1st), NAOC (2nd, 3rd), XMU (4th) and SYSU(5th). Presentations were given at these workshops describing the facilities and science cases, with downloadable links.
Please avoid these common mistakes from previous proposals:
· No justification for the proposed instrument.
- No justification for lunar phase. In particular, any IR programs requesting time other than bright time must justify very clearly why.
- No justification for requested image quality/seeing for CFHT queue programs
- No justification for depth and signal-to-noise required for the science. It is not sufficient to simply say, "We require 2300s exposure time to reach S/N=10 for g=24 mag" if g=24 and S/N=10 are not also justified.
- No justification for sample size or survey area. Why does the program need 66 galaxies? Why not 50? Why not 20?
- What specific science question(s) will be answered by the program?
- No mention of the current status of the field, work done by others, or why the proposal would be a significant advancement over what has already been done.
- Do not exceed the page limits, or put information in the wrong sections of the proposal in order to circumvent page limits.
- Please include an update on all programs where the investigators have received TAP time.
Any proposals that makes the above mistakes will have a much lower chance of being accepted.