Contents 1. ING Instrumentation in Semester 2002B (including non-availability of UES and INTEGRAL) 2. Time-share Agreement with TNG for NL and UK Observers 3. The ING Service Programme 4. Definition of Dark, Grey and Bright Time 5. Telescope Support 1. ING Instrumentation in Semester 2002B ---------------------------------------- General Information Detailed information on ING instrumentation offered for the forthcoming semester can be found in the ING web pages at http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/instruments.html and guidelines for proposal submission can be found at http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/INGinfo_home.html Applicants should refer to these pages for the latest information. Occasionally highly rated proposals may not be awarded time due to scheduling constraints. Due to construction of the Adaptive Optics Nasmyth platform (GRACE), UES and INTEGRAL will not be available in this semester. In the meantime, access to high-resolution spectroscopic instrumentation has been secured through a time-share agreement with the Italian National Telescope Galileo (TNG) on La Palma. For details see the following section of this INGNEWS issue. Instrumentation Overview WHT http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/telescopes/wht/ --- WHT applicants are encouraged to submit proposals for larger time applications. For the UK community, the PATT2 application form allows a 2-page scientific justification for proposals for six or more nights. The following instrument/detector configurations are available: Instrument Detector ISIS BLUE EEV12 ISIS RED TEK4 AUX-port TEK1 PRIME 2xEEV Mosaic AUTOFIB2/WYFFOS TEK6 INGRID 1kx1k HgCdTe NAOMI/INGRID 1kx1k HgCdTe (shared-risks basis) Notes NAOMI/INGRID: Observations will be carried out in service mode. AUTOFIB2: The large fibres module has been withdrawn. WHT visitor instrument contacts are: PN.S Nigel Douglas, ndouglas@astro.rug.nl SAURON Tim de Zeeuw, tim@strw.leidenuniv.nl S-CAM Michael Perryman, mperryma@astro.estec.esa.nl Ultracam Vik Dhillon, vik.dhillon@sheffield.ac.uk INT - http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/telescopes/int/ --- The following instrument/detector configurations are available: Instrument Detector WFC 4xEEV IDS 235/500 EEV10 or TEK5 INT visitor instrument contacts are: CIRSI Richard McMahon, rgm@ast.cam.ac.uk Observing time is allocated in blocks of one week on average, and observing programmes shorter than *4* nights are not accepted, unless explicitly agreed in advance by the Head of Astronomy or the Director of ING. JKT - http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/telescopes/jkt/ --- Only one instrument/detector configuration is available: Instrument Detector Direct imaging 2kx2k SITe2 The JKT only supports one common-user instrument, and private instruments are not accepted. Although there is no formal limit on the duration of observing runs on the JKT, short proposals are not encouraged, and observing time is usually allocated in blocks of ~1 week. 2. Time-share Agreement with TNG for NL and UK Observers ------------------------------------------------------- As part of a collaboration between ING and TNG, NL and UK observers may apply to use three TNG instruments. These are: + The high resolution spectrograph, SARG + The near infrared camera-spectrometer, NICS, in non-AO spectroscopy mode only + The multi-object low-resolution optical spectrograph, DOLORES A minimum of five nights is available in total in semester 2002B to the NL and UK communities, and in return the Italian community obtains access to the WHT for the same number of nights. More than five nights may be shared if such demand is balanced between both telescopes. For further details on the TNG observing guidelines and for instrumentation details, refer to: http://www.tng.iac.es/ Select "instruments" for detailed information on SARG, NICS and DOLORES. SARG is a high efficiency echelle spectrograph designed for the spectral range from 370 up to 900 nm, and for resolutions from R=29,000 up to R=164,000. Both single object and long slit (up to 30 arcsec) observing modes are possible. A dioptric camera images the cross-dispersed spectra onto a mosaic of two 2048X4096 CCDs. NICS is the TNG infrared (0.9-2.5 µm) imaging spectrometer, utilising a HgCdTe Hawaii 1024x1024 array. Its observing capabilities include imaging (4.2'x4.2' FoV), high-throughput low resolution spectroscopy (RS=50-500), medium resolution spectroscopy (max-R=2500), imaging polarimetry, spectropolarimetry and, when coupled to the adaptive optics module, near diffraction limited imaging. It is offered to NL and UK applicants in non-AO spectroscopic mode only. DOLORES (Device Optimized for the LOw RESolution) is a focal reducer instrument installed at the Nasmyth B focus of the TNG. The detector is a Loral thinned and back-illuminated 2048x2048 CCD. The scale is 0.275 arcsec per pixel, which yields a field of view of about 9.4 x 9.4 arcmin. The instrument allows imaging through broad and narrow band filters as well as spectroscopic observations with resolving powers between RS=300 and RS=3000. Please note that NL and UK applicants for SARG, NICS or DOLORES should apply using their standard PATT/NL form and should send these to their own national TAGs. DO NOT APPLY DIRECTLY TO TNG. (CAT observers should apply for TNG time in the usual way). Successful NL and UK applicants to TNG will qualify for EC funding under the auspices of the EC's Access to Research Infrastructures Programme to cover travel, accommodation and subsistence costs, assuming they meet the criteria for eligibility. For further details of this general scheme see: http://www.otri.iac.es/eno/ 3. The ING Service Programme ---------------------------- Prospective applicants to the JKT Service Programme are reminded that due to the impact of cost savings at ING, the scheme of service observing carried out by observatory personnel will be discontinued on the JKT from the end of Semester 2002A. The INT and WHT Service Programmes will continue in their present format until the end of Semester 2003A, when the INT Service Programme will also be discontinued. 4. Definition of Dark, Grey and Bright Time ------------------------------------------- Beginning with Semester 2002B, the definition of dark, grey and bright categories used in creating the telescope schedules will change. The historical method, based upon the fraction of each night that is moonless, does not give a consistent mapping in terms of sky brightness. The method to be adopted is based on the fractional illumination of the Moon, k: Dark: 0.00 .le. k .lt. 0.25 Grey: 0.25 .le. k .lt. 0.65 Bright: 0.65 .le. k .le. 1.00 The ING exposure time calculator,SIGNAL, has been modified to offer an option specifying 'typical' sky brightnesses for dark, grey and bright time, corresponding to V=21.5, 19.75 and 18.50 magnitudes/arcsec^2 respectively. Proposals for darker conditions must of course be justified scientifically. A short article explaining the reasons for this change will appear in the forthcoming edition of the ING Newsletter, and a longer article is available as ING Technical Note 127: http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/manuals/man_tn.html 5. Telescope Support -------------------- Astronomical support is provided on the first night of each run on the WHT, INT and JKT. Telescope Operator (TO) support is provided for each night of all WHT runs. INT Wide Field Camera runs have TO support for the first two nights only, and INT IDS runs of six or more nights will have TO support for the first four nights only. TO support is not provided on the JKT. Observers are reminded that filter and/or grating changes within a run will be accommodated provided that they have been explicitly requested in the telescope proposal. However, due to limited human resources, additional changes to the instrumental configuration may not be accommodated. ============================================================= * To unsubscribe from [INGNEWS] send to majordomo@ing.iac.es the command "unsubscribe ingnews" in the body of the message. Please don't type in the quotation marks and leave the subject field and the rest of the body empty. * You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending an email to majordomo@ing.iac.es with the message "subscribe ingnews " in the body of the message, where should contain your email address, e.g. einstein@xyz.ac.uk. 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