Time on the WHT and INT is administered on a semester basis, and is allocated primarily by the national time allocation committees (TACs) of the three operating countries, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. The A-semester runs from 1st February to 31st July, and the B-semester from 1st August to 31st January. Telescope proposals should be submitted directly to the TACs; proposal submission guidelines and deadlines are given on their respective web pages (see below). Each of the national TACs welcomes proposals with PI or co-Is based in countries other than the operating countries.

Approximately 5% of ING telescope time is available for large-scale international projects through the International Time Programme (ITP), and this is allocated on an annual basis by the International Scientific Committee (CCI). Pan-European access to the ING telescopes is allocated by the EC-funded Research Infrastructure Programme, OPTICON, on a semester basis.

The ING telescopes and instruments overview page summarises instrumentation options offered for the forthcoming semester.

• Call for proposals for observing time in semester 2010B
• Call for proposals to the OPTICON Trans-National Access Programme in semester 2010B. Deadline passed.
• Call for proposals to the CCI's International Time Programme on the Canary Islands. Deadline passed.

Five separate time-allocation committees allocate time on the ING telescopes:

• For Dutch-based applicants, the NL Programme Committee, NL PC
• For Spanish-based applicants, the Comité para la Asignación de Tiempo, CAT
• For UK-based applicants, the Panel for the Allocation of Telescope Time, PATT
• For OPTICON applicants, the OPTICON TAC
• For International Time Programme applicants, the International Scientific Committee, CCI.

The national identity of a proposal for observing time is defined by the country hosting the institute in which the PI is employed or studying at the time of submission. PIs employed or studying in a Dutch, Spanish or British institute at the time of submission should submit their proposal(s) to the Dutch, Spanish or British TAC respectively. Proposals submitted to a national TAC by a PI employed or studying in one of the other operating countries may be assessed by that TAC or, at its discretion, may be passed on to the correct national TAC.

Each of the three national TACs will accept proposals with PI or co-Is based in countries other than the operating countries. A proposal submitted to a national TAC by a PI employed or studying outside of the operating countries, i.e. an international proposal, may be assessed by that TAC, or at its discretion may be passed to an international TAC comprising members of the three national TACs. Such international proposals must be written in English. International proposals that otherwise meet OPTICON's criteria of eligibility (see below), but which are submitted to and awarded telescope time by the national TACs, do not qualify for OPTICON financial support.

Please refer to the web pages of each time allocation committee for further details on proposal submission and deadlines; detailed information for UK PATT applicants is available on the ING web pages.

Access to the ING telescopes under the auspices of the EC-funded Research Infrastructure Programme OPTICON is available to eligible astronomers based in EU Member States and Associated States, and EC funding may be available to cover their travel, accommodation and subsistence costs. Applications from new users and young researchers, and astronomers based in countries without similar research facilities, are strongly encouraged.

Prospective applicants are urged to read the local OPTICON web pages for detailed information on eligibility and other aspects of the programme. .

From semester 2010B onward, OPTICON proposals will be assessed by a separate OPTICON TAC, and observing proposals should be submitted directly to OPTICON using the NORTHSTAR web-based proposal preparation tool. Please refer to the external OPTICON web pages for further details of proposal submission, including the deadline.

Note that proposals submitted directly to ING's national TACs that otherwise meet the OPTICON criteria of eligibiliy do not qualify for OPTICON financial support if awarded telescope time; only proposals submitted directly to OPTICON may qualify for financial support from OPTICON.

PIs planning to submit a proposal based on a new (to ING) visitor instrument should follow the procedure for New Visitor Instruments, which includes informing the Director of ING of their intent at least three months before the proposal deadlines.

Telescope Operator support is provided on each night of all WHT runs, and astronomical support is provided until 11pm on the first night of all WHT runs.

Due to the impact of cost savings at ING Telescope Operator support is not provided on the INT. Astronomical support is provided until 11pm on the first night of all INT runs by student Support Astronomers.

We remind applicants that inexperienced observers on the WHT and INT must be accompanied by an experienced observer, and it is essential that INT observers have considerable end-to-end observing experience with mid-size telescopes.

Applicants are reminded that changes to the configuration of an instrument within an observing run will be accommodated provided (i) they have been explicitly requested in the application, and (ii) the dates of such configuration changes fall on normal work days. These dates should be communicated to your support astronomer one month in advance of the run so that appropriate staff can be rostered to effect the changes. All other requests for configuration changes will be handled on a best efforts basis.

Half nights are not scheduled, and for the INT the minimum duration of observing runs is 4 nights, unless explicity agreed in advance by the Director of ING or the Head of Astronomy.

See the online documentation areas for further details on the WHT and INT and ING's policy on data ownership. The ING data archive is hosted at the CASU Astronomical Data Centre in Cambridge, U.K.

Signal may be used to calculate exposure times for any telescope-instrument-detector combination, and the following moonlight diagrams will be useful in helping you plan your observations.

[INGNEWS] is an important source of breaking news concerning current developments at the ING, especially with regard to instrumentation.

Proposals by postgraduate students are welcome; however, inexperienced observers should not come unaccompanied to make the observations.

At the end of your observing run please fill in the feedback form, and use this acknowledgement in any papers based on data obtained with ING telescopes.