TO:  ALL MCDONALD AND HET OBSERVERS
FROM:  Anita Cochran
SUBJECT:  Call for McDonald Observing Proposals

DATE: 16 September 2014

This trimester will cover the December 1 2014 to March 31 2015 period for
McDonald Proposals.  There will be no call for HET proposals.

NOTE that the deadlines (see below) are FIRM and we will close the
web site shortly after the deadline.

WEB SITE OPENS ON 17 September 2014

SPECIAL NOTES:
30 inch telescope: The refurbished 30 inch telescope is available
for remote operations for full or partial nights.  Observers will
be required to attend a classical run at McDonald of at least two
nights to train to use the telescope before they will be permitted to
run it remotely.

IGRINS: Proposals to use IGRINS on the 2.7m telescope must be coordinated
with Dr. Dan Jaffe.  IGRINS is a high-resolution H and K (simultaneously)
spectrograph for the 2.7m Cassegrain focus.

FLEXIBILITY: Please be as flexible as possible with your dates and moon
constraints.  The more flexible you are, the more likely I will be able
to schedule you for some time! PLEASE DO NOT BURY YOUR CONSTRAINTS IN
THE TEXT - make sure there is something to flag them on the cover page.

FOR REQUESTING PARTIAL NIGHTS: If you are requesting partial nights,
put the actual sum of partial nights in the "nights requested"j
box (e.g. for 3 half nights the sum is 1.5 nights) and put something
like "3x0.5 nights' in the "Specify range of dates box".


McDONALD
Proposals for the McDonald telescopes on Mt. Locke will be due on 
Tuesday 30 September at 8am.  All proposals are to be submitted using
the on-line web submission form. This system is located at
hydra.as.utexas.edu/mtlocke/.  It is password controlled.  You can assign
yourself an account the first time you use it.  If you have forgotten your
password, the system can send you a new one.  Note that there are some 
upgrades to the form that should make it simpler but if you encounter
problems send them to me and Jim Umbarger (jimum@astro.as.utexas.edu)

In the web format, some of the routine items are menu selectable.  The 
long text portions (e.g. Scientific Justification) are uploadable in 
pdf or ps format.  You may prepare them in any text processor you wish as 
long as you can upload pdf or ps.  Margin and font size information are 
given on the web site.  You may upload the text sections either as a single
document or as a separate document for each section.  PLEASE PUT A
SECTION HEADING ON EACH SECTION. You may edit your proposal repeatedly
and the last submission will be the one which counts.  For LaTeX users,
there is a (very) simple template available for download from either
the instruction page or the page for text uploads.

Proposals for the 30 inch telescope only require the cover pages plus a
plan for training submitted where your science justification would be.

NOTE: The TAC receives paper proposals in B&W, though they can access them on
line. Therefore, consider how your proposal will look in B&W and don't
assume that they will go to the effort of looking on line. However, if
you need color for clarity, go ahead and use it.

NOTE: We will not accept ANY submissions via email.

HET
There will be no HET proposals accepted at this time.

LONG-TERM STATUS:
Long-term status can be conferred on projects for periods of 1 year for 
Mt. Locke only.  Only UT projects are eligible for long-term status.  Only a
fraction of the telescope time will be allocated for long-term projects.
Simply needing a large allocation is not generally considered a justification.
The TAC is looking for a reason such as the science requiring multiple epochs.

The Web forms have a place to upload the request for long-term
status and it must be submitted as part of your normal proposal. 
Note that this extra page is only for justification of the
need for long-term status.  The request must indicate why your project needs
long-term status, what milestones you expect to achieve by the end of the 1
year period and details of the numbers of nights you need in the current and
following two trimesters. Only 1 page is allowed.


SUMMARY
The McDonald trimester will cover the December 1 2014 to March 31 2015 period.
You do not need to submit ANY hard copies. NOTE that the deadlines are FIRM
and we will close the web site shortly after the deadline.

McDonald proposals:
Web submission by 8am Tuesday September 30.

HET proposals:
No proposals

If you have problems with the web submission system, send email to
jimum@astro.as.utexas.edu AND anita@astro.as.utexas.edu.

Updated Mt. Locke Operations Schedules
ftp://astro.as.utexas.edu/pub/mcdonald/schedules/