ING ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2008B The semester 2008B announcement of opportunity for observing time at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma can be found at: http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/2008B_AO.html Please feel free to distribute this announcement in your institute. I would like to bring to your special attention the following aspects related to the ING telescopes. 1. Last year the laser guide beacon for Adaptive Optics on the WHT was commissioned. During the next several months science verification and system characterization will take place, and a special call for service observing time has been issued (deadline 29 Feb 2008; see http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/2008AServiceAO.html ). The GLAS laser system is also available for general applications for observing time in semester 2008B. 2. I highlight here the advent of a new detector for the ISIS spectrograph, QUCAM. This frame-transfer L3CCD (or EMCCD) allows very fast spectroscopy with virtually zero read noise. It opens a new window at the WHT on the highly variable universe. For details please see the ISIS web page under http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/ or contact the instrument specialist (prguez@ing.iac.es). 3. Although the future of the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope remains uncertain beyond 2009, we still welcome in particular large proposals for observing time. The observatory will continue to support this telescope and its instrumentation into the foreseeable future. 4. INGs future: Recent developments in the UK have resulted in rumors over the future of the ING telescopes on La Palma. Although the future in the longer term is indeed not guaranteed, there is no indication that the observatory is under immediate threat. This is probably best indicated by the active development programme for the WHT, specifically of the ACAM imager that will be completed this year, and the fact that we expect to sign an agreement very soon over the deployment of a world-class high-resolution spectrograph HARPS-NEF that will become available from 2010 onwards. Further details of the proposal submission process and current instrumentation at ING can be found at: http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/INGinfo_home.html and http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/ Rene Rutten Director, ING 21 February 2008 ============================================================= You can subscribe to [INGNEWS] by sending a message to elists@ing.iac.es with the following text in the body of the message and in the subject line: subscribe ingnews. To unsubscribe do the same but replacing subscribe by unsubscribe. More information can be found at http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/science/bulletin/.