Telescope Access Program Call for Proposals

Semester 2024B

Proposal Deadline: 

21 March 2024 23:59  China Standard Time 

Proposed Semester:

CFHT, P200: 1 August 2024 to 31 January 2025

TAP Overview for 2024B

The Telescope Access Program (TAP) is now open for applications. TAP is a program to give China-based astronomers direct access to competitive instrumentation on intermediate- and large-aperture optical/infrared telescopes.  We estimate that the following amount of time will be available in the 2024B semester:

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (3.6m, CFHT):  

4-7 nights  [August 2024 - January 2025] 

Palomar Hale Telescope (5.1m, P200):

10 nights  [August 2024 - January 2025] 

Important Notes

· All proposals should be uploaded to tap.china-vo.org (user guide) before 21 March 2024 23:59 China Standard Time!!!

· CFHT Notes: Note that a new SITELLE filter is available and that technical notes were added to help teams ensure the technical feasibility of their proposals.

· P200 Notes: Note that DBSP is scheduled to be decommissioned and replaced by NGPS by Nov 1, 2024. Applications to use DBSP should take that into consideration.

· CFHT proposals should be first submitted through CFHT’s Call for Proposal page: https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/science/Proposals/, then!! uploaded to tap.china-vo.org (the official version with CFHT generated proposal numbers) before 21 March 2024 23:59 China Standard Time.

· CFHT nights are converted from instrument hours as follows : 1 night = 5 hrs WIRCam/MegaCam = 6.5 hrs SITELLE = 7 hrs SPIRou = 7.5 hrs ESPaDOnS. Please indicate both the hours and nights  in your application cover sheet (e.g. SITELLE 3.5 hrs, 0.5 nights).

· P200 proposals should use the latest LaTeX proposal template (v1.3.3), available here (zip) . The zip package contains a blank template, a .cls file, and an example proposal. The uploaded pdf (to tap.china-vo.org) should!!  include the Cover Sheet  (https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/coo/solicit/2024B/C200.html) at the beginning of the pdf.

· If you or your CoI have successful TAP proposals before, relevant  records should be added to ‘My Report’ and ‘My Papers’ at tap.china-vo.org. Missing report may affect 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.   

· Please check the available instruments on the telescope sites before applying! Some instruments may not be available in the upcoming semester.

· 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. 

· Please read the full instructions before submission.

Time Allocation Policy

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.

Advices for writing proposals

Please avoid these common mistakes in your 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.