Our official contact point regarding any questions about Gemini and Its instruments is Joanna Thomas-Osip (jthomas@gemini.edu) . She will forward your inquiries to a proper person at Gemini and help with the communication. If you know someone at Gemini via collaboration or via friendship, then you can ask them directly but please CC her in your email.

Call for Proposal for Gemini / 2016B

K-GMT Science Group (KGSG) invites proposals for observations with Gemini for the K-GMT Science Program.

Call for Proposal

Please refer here for the general information of the call for proposals.

Deadline

  • 11:59 p.m. KST, Apr 1st, 2015

Guideline

For the general guideline of the program, please refer to the [guideline page].

Available number of nights

  • ~10 nights (subject to change depending on the availability)

The number of nights available for the year of 2016B is about 10 nights distributed between Gemini North and Gemini South, and will cover the full range of lunar phases.

Observing Period

  • 2016 Aug. ~ 2017 Jan.

Obserbing mode

For this year (2016), the classical mode will be primarily available to Korean community. The observation will be carried out in a few blocks of nights which will be allocated to Korean community. Observations may be executed as a mini-queue mode within those blocks. See below for more details on how the observations will be executed.

ToO

You may propose Target of Opportunity (ToO) programs where the trigger time is not known (SNe, GRBs). However, the amount of time that can be awarded will be limited to less than a few hours in total per semester and may not be carried out within Korean blocks but by Gemini’s general queue mode observations

Instruments

For information on available instruments and observing modes, please refer to the Gemini Call for Proposal page .

LGAO

Laser Guided Adaptive Optics (LGAO) mode of observations may be available but limited. This requires the Korean block to be scheduled to right next to the normal Gemini LGAO block which may not be possible. Even if this may be done, the awarded time will be less than a few hours in total per semester.

Nominal awarded time per program

Typical range of requesting time will be from a few hours to a few nights.

Observing Mode

For 2016B semester, the observing time will be conducted in two to four dedicated blocks of two to five nights of Classical time (for a total of about 10 nights in 2016A). Each block of nights will be scheduled as Priority Visitor (PV) Observing runs so that the block will have more number of nights than actually assigned to Korea. The observations will be supported by Gemini staffs and during each PV block, one or more KASI/Korean observers will observe the selected programs on behalf of Korean community and other normal Gemini queue programs with Gemini staffs. KASI will nominate one PI to each block who will decide which program to run among the selected Korean programs, including ToOs, at specific time of night and/or the order of programs to run in that block. The blocks of nights will be distributed between Gemini North and Gemini South, and will cover the full range of lunar phases.

  • Primarily Classical mode.
  • May be executed in mini-queue mode.
  • ToO observation in the mini-queue will be available.
  • ToO observation using normal Gemini queue will be limited.
  • Use of LGAO mode will be limited as described above.
  • Korean time in 2016 is self-contained and cannot be used in “Joint” proposals.
  • Due to the limitation of the scheduling, we may not be able to schedule some qualified proposals and some proposals may be only partially scheduled.
Proposal Submission

Proposers must use Gemini Phase-I Tool PIT. The PIT is a downloadable application that is used to provide "front-page" information including the title, abstract, and contact info for the investigators. Instrument configuration details, target coordinates, and observing constraints are also included in PIT. "Essay" sections are included in a single PDF attachment, which can be prepared using an MS Word or LaTeX template. Detailed help pages and video tutorials are available on the Gemini web site.

Please consider these suggestions and guidelines when preparing your proposal:

  • Please use the template that can be found at the PIT software distribution site (the link will be announced when ready) to prepare the Essay section (please use non-US version of template, GemPhase1.doc or GemPhase1.tex; for the reference, check the previous call for proposal pages).
  • The scientific justification page has one-page limit for the text. Two additional pages can be used for references and figures. For page limits of other part of the essay, please refer to the description in the templates.
  • Be sure to include example Integration Time Calculator (ITC) output -- please see the instructions in the template.
  • When PI is a graduate student, please clarify who is his/her thesis advisor in the scheduling request section within the PIT.
  • Even though Korean programs will be scheduled as classical programs, all Korean proposers are advised to prepare their programs as Queue observations by providing as much information as possible during the Phase I and Phase II stages. This is because some of the programs can be carried out as a part of Korean mini-queue programs or regular Gemini queue programs.

For more details, please refer to Gemini’s page at http://www.gemini.edu/sciops/observing-gemini.