Todd Boroson and Craig Foltz
In the September Newsletter, NOAO and the MMT Observatory jointly announced a call for proposals for public access time on the new 6.5-m telescope of the MMT Observatory. Beginning in March 2000, 162 nights of observing time over 6 years are being made available to the astronomical community under an agreement with the National Science Foundation. Twenty-six proposals requesting 75 nights were received by 30 September for time during the period from March-July, 2000. Since only 11 nights are available to the community during this period, the oversubscription factor is a huge 6.8 (see Observing Request Statistics at the end of this section). The proposals are being reviewed by the NOAO TAC along with all of the CTIO and KPNO proposals also received, and investigators will be notified of the status of their proposals in early December. Successful proposals will be forwarded to the MMT for scheduling, but investigators should note that approximately 20% more proposals will be forwarded than can be scheduled to allow for block scheduling, conflicts in dates, etc. Craig Foltz, the Director of the MMT Observatory, will notify investigators of the dates of their observing runs. Runs early in the semester will be scheduled quickly, but the schedule for the second part of the semester won't be written until the spring.