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 to the OPTICON Trans-National Access Programme for semester 2012B
• Call for proposals to the CCI's International Time Programme on the Canary Islands.
• Special call for service observing with ULTRACAM in February 2012 (deadline passed)
• Call for proposals for observing time in semester 2012A (deadline passed)

  
  

  Time Allocation Committees

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

  • For Netherlands-based applicants, the NL Programme Committee, NL PC
  • For Spain-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.

  
  

  Opticon Trans-national Access Programme

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  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.

  From semester 2010B onward, OPTICON proposals are 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 OPTICON web pages for details of the criteria of eligibility and proposal submission, including the deadline.

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

  
  

  New Visitor Instruments

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  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 or ING of their intent at least three months before the proposal deadlines.

  
  

  Telescope Support Model

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  Duty engineer support on the WHT and INT has been withdrawn since May 2010. However, the WHT telescope operator role has been extended to that of observing support assistant (OSA), with the responsibility of providing year-round full-night operator and engineering support at the WHT, and limited support for the INT. INT observers should be aware that critical technical problems that occur on weekends or public holidays, and which cannot be solved by the OSA, will not be addressed until the next working day.

  Astronomical support continues to be provided until approximately 11pm on the first night of all WHT and INT runs, by staff astronomers at the WHT and by student support astronomers at the INT.

  We remind applicants that inexperienced observers (both generally and in the relevant observing technique scheduled) on the WHT and INT must be accompanied by a suitably experienced observer, and it is essential that INT observers, who are responsible for all aspects of operating the telescope and instrument, have considerable end-to-end observing experience with mid-size telescopes.

  Changes to the configuration of an instrument within an observing run will be accommodated provided they have been explicitly requested in the application. Physical changes to instrument configurations, e.g. filter, dichroic and grating changes, must never be carried out by visiting observers, but will be made by ING staff. At the WHT, such changes can also be made during the night by the OSA, but due to its distinct support model, INT instrument configuration changes can only be made on normal work days, when appropriate day-time staff are available to effect the changes. Requests for changes to instrument configuration during a run should be communicated to the rostered support astronomer well in advance of the run.

  
  

  General Information

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  Observing programmes of less than one night are not accepted on either the WHT or the INT 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.