Online Help for the NOAO

Survey Observing Proposal Web Form

The text below contains detailed information about what is required in each field of the Web proposal form for Survey Proposals. Both Web proposal forms and proposals submitted electronically by email must be received by 11:59pm MST Thursday evening March 28, 2013 to be considered for observing time. Survey proposals will only be accepted from investigators who submitted a letter of intent by February 15, 2013. Observing time for Survey Programs submitted during this proposal period will begin in the 2013B or 2014A semesters.

WHAT IS A SURVEY PROGRAM?

NOAO makes a substantial amount of time available on most facilities to which it provides access for surveys. Surveys are not merely large-scale projects or projects that aim to study complete samples. A survey is a significant observational program which

• addresses novel, well-focused scientific goals;

• enables scientific programs requiring large, statistically complete, and homogeneous data;

• provides a basis for planning more detailed follow-up studies;

• enables extensive archival research; and

• represents a significant enhancement over existing surveys.

Successful programs are expected to be completed in 3 years or less. Data must be processed with a well-tested and well-documented pipeline, must be archived in a convenient format, and must be made publicly available no longer than one year after the first images are pipeline processed.

It is expected that to undertake a survey requires a considerable commitment of resources. NOAO's contribution will be telescope time, instrumental capabilities, some expertise in the areas of pipeline data reduction and archiving. The proposer is expected to provide manpower to plan and make the observations, reduce the data, and make the final database available to the community in a useful way. Because these are commitments of significant resources on both sides, the proposal for a survey requires a greater degree of explanation than does a proposal for a standard program. For the justification, note that the criteria by which a survey is evaluated are somewhat different -- items like how the data could be used afterward and how much of an educational component play a role. The "Experimental Design" and "Management Plan" sections are provided in which the proposer is expected to explain in detail how the survey will be carried out and where the resources will come from. A key part of the proposal is clearly demonstrating the total time allocation required to complete the survey on the presumption of good weather. We will evaluate the need for augmenting the allocation requested to allow for bad weather. Approved surveys may additionally apply for augmentation in their final year of operation to allow for lost time. Read the instructions carefully.

EVALUATION OF SURVEY PROPOSALS

Survey proposals are evaluated by a special survey Time Allocation Committee (TAC). Membership of the TAC is drawn from the community. The survey program letters of intent are used to indicate the astronomical areas of expertise required to evaluate the anticipated survey proposals. The TAC is convened in a two-day meeting, the first day of which is devoted to presentations from the existing survey teams on their scientific, observational, and data analysis progress. As part of the survey program, we request that all survey program PIs or their representatives attend this annual meeting. The second day of the meeting is used by the TAC to evaluate new survey proposals and any requests for augmentation by the existing programs. Survey programs will be graded separately in three categories:

• Overall scientific impact and importance of the research proposed to astronomy, including broader impact to society, such as educational impact.

• Credibility of the management plan for executing the survey and completing the timely delivery of data products.

• Archival value of the reduced survey data and associated data products.

Approved survey programs will be drawn from a ranked list based on the combination of grades from all three categories.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

1. Be sure to read the documentation available on the proposal form home page that deals with changes to the proposal form and process, details about how to use the Web form, and instrument lists and availability.

2. Investigators have two submission options.

   • Web submission. The proposal may be completed through the Web form attaching figures and/or text as noted in the instructions. The "Submit Proposal" button on the Web form displays a final check page - the proposal may then be submitted from this page to the proposal queue for consideration for observing time, or the investigator can choose to go back and make modifications to the proposal before final submission. Once the proposal has been submitted to the proposal queue it may no longer be modified.

   • File upload Once required general, investigator and run information has been completed on the Web form, the "Email LaTeX File" button becomes activated, and you can request that the partially completed LaTeX template be emailed back to you for editing locally. The completed LaTeX proposal form and any figures may then be submitted by by uploading them at http://www.noao.edu/noaoprop/submit/

3. If you are using the Web proposal submission process then be sure that you have included all of your figures as file attachments to your proposal. We have no way of dealing with "mixed" proposals in which part of the proposal is submitted via the Web and the rest is sent by email. You may of course use the Web proposal form to create the LaTeX version of your proposal and then submit it and any figures by electronic mail, being certain to edit the LaTeX file - that was returned to you as an option on the Web form - with the correct figure information, as needed.

4. Before submitting your Web proposal form, be sure you have corrected any LaTeX errors and viewed the PostScript or PDF version of the proposal to make certain that it looks the way that you wish the review panels to see it.

You are asked to enter some general information associated with your proposal in this section of the Web proposal form.

• Descriptive title for the proposal. The text entered in this field must be LaTeX-compatible. Note that a title can be quite long; LaTeX will break the title into separate lines automatically. If you wish to indicate line breaks yourself, do so with a "\\" command at the appropriate point in the title text. Use both upper and lower case letters (NOT ALL CAPS). If you need to use any special symbols in the title see our LaTeX Pointers document for help.

• Scientific Category. Please select a scientific category from the pull-down menu that best describes your program.

• Keywords. If more than five keywords are selected, the first five alphabetically will be used.

• Personal LaTeX definitions. Enter here any personal LaTeX definitions you would like to include in your proposal. You may wish to review first however the symbols and definitions supported through our style file.

INVESTIGATOR INFORMATION PAGE

Only the principal investigator and the first six co-investigators of a survey team will appear on your copy of the LaTeX-processed proposal. Any additional investigators, however, will be included in our database and available to the review panel.

Please complete all the fields for each investigator as noted. Complete address information for the PI is necessary for receiving correspondence related to your survey proposal.

• Investigator's name. Enter the first name first, followed by any middle initial, and then the last name last, i.e., William J. Clinton.

• Affiliation. Enter your affiliation; abbreviations are encouraged to prevent a long entry.

• Department. Enter your department, if appropriate. Note that some institutions will not deliver postal mail if this is not included in the postal mailing address.

• Street address/PO Box. Enter this information in a comma separated list, i.e., P.O. Box 26732, 950 N. Cherry Ave.

• City. Enter your city, i.e., Tucson.

• State/Province.Enter state or province. For US addresses please use your two-letter state code, i.e., AZ.

• Country. Non-US addresses should include the country in this field.

• Postal/Zip Code.Enter your postal or zip code, i.e., 85726.

• Phone. Include area codes, country and city codes, and extension numbers, as needed.

• FAX. The FAX number will not be printed on the paper copy of the proposal but it will be included in our database.

• Status. You must also select each investigator's status at the time of the proposal submission from the pull-down menu to help us with our required reporting to the NSF. Select "Graduate student, thesis" only if this proposal is being submitted by a graduate student to collect thesis data.

  If the proposal is a thesis or if the principal investigator is a graduate student, the student's thesis/faculty advisor must complete an online Thesis Student Information Form. Graduate students proposing thesis observations should consult NOAO policies concerning thesis programs and travel support. Consideration for travel support requires that the advisor's submission is received by the deadline.

• Email address. Give full address.

• Telescope requests. For Survey programs, select from the pull-down menus the appropriate Observatory - Telescope configuration for each different instrument you are requesting for survey observations during the course of your entire program (not just the first semester). You can request up to six different Observatory-Telescope-Instrument configurations. Leave those runs set to "Optional" for which you are not requesting time.

• Scheduling constraints and non-usable dates. Summarize any scheduling constraints or non-usable dates for your observations (e.g. "schedule imaging observations four nights per month" or "run dates must be coordinated with HST observations"). Note here if you are requesting runs in an "either/or" situation, e.g. run 1 or run 2, but not both. It would also be useful to our schedulers if you noted here that there are potential conflicts with other proposals. Please limit your text to 4 lines on the printed copy. Detailed scheduling information should be provided in the Management Plan section of the proposal.

DETAILS OF OBSERVING RUNS REQUESTED PAGE

Please enter the specified details for each Observatory-Telescope-Instrument combination that you are requesting. The Observatory - Telescope combinations that you indicated on the previous page are listed along with the information needed to complete the specifications.

• Instrument/Detector. Select the instrument/detector combination from the pull-down menu for each run. If an entry in this list is proceeded with an "*" be sure to read further about this instrument's availability.

  If you are planning to bring a Visitor Instrument, you must send a separate letter by email to noaoprop-letter@noao.edu prior to April 1 to make sure we fully understand what will be involved in interfacing your equipment to our telescopes.

• Number of Nights. Enter the total number of nights requested for the selected instrument to complete the entire survey. The number of nights requested in each semester of the program should be included in a list in the Management Plan section.

• Moon. Using the pull-down menu select the optimal moon phase which can be utilized to accomplish your scientific goals for this run, which in turn reflects the number of nights from new moon where darkest<=3, dark<=7, grey<=10, bright<=14. Particular lunar phase requirements dictated by the science program (e.g., "<=12", "+9, -6", or "full moon more than 2 hours away from Taurus") should be noted in the "Scheduling constraints and non-usable dates" section.

• Range of Optimal Months. Enter a single range of months for optimal scheduling of your survey observations with the selected instrument from the pull-down menus. If a single range is insufficient for each configuration, provide additional details in the "Scheduling Constraints" section. If the observations can be scheduled any time, select "Aug" through "Jul." If your objects are found only in a limited range of right ascension, select a shorter range (e.g. "Dec" through "Feb").

• Range of Acceptable Months. Enter a single range of acceptable months for your observations from the pull-down menus. (i.e., you would not accept time outside those limits). NOTE THAT DUE TO INSTRUMENT BLOCKING RESTRICTIONS YOU SHOULD MAKE THE ACCEPTABLE RANGE AS GENEROUS AS POSSIBLE.

• Range of Right Ascension + Declination of principal targets. Enter R.A. in hours and Dec. in degrees, e.g. "23 to 6" or "-10 to +15".

• Filters. List here any filters (including order separation filters) that you may need for this run, avoiding use of LaTeX symbols if possible. Use a comma separated list, i.e, B, V, R, Halpha, [SII]. If you are using non-standard KPNO filters, please include the KPNO Filter Number, available on the Web.

• Slit width.If appropriate, enter the slit width(s) in arc seconds that will be used for this run, i.e., 1.7".

• Fiber cable.Select from the pull-down menu the fiber cable that will be used for this run. This option is only appropriate, but required, for WIYN/Hydra, WIYN/DensePak, and CTIO/Hydra.

• Grating/grism.If appropriate, enter the grating/grism(s) that will be used with this run.

• Multislits. Select "yes" or "no" from the pull-down menu if you have requested an instrument with this capability.

• Order. Enter grating orders as appropriate.

• lambda-start and lambda-end. Enter the beginning and end of the required wavelength range if this is a spectroscopic run.

• Collimator. Enter the collimator needed as appropriate for your run requirements.

• Cross disperser. Enter the cross disperser appropriate for your run requirements, if applicable.

• Atmos. disp. corr. Select "yes" or "no" if the instrument has an ADC option, otherwise leave this field blank.

There are two text fields in this section of the proposal form. These entries must be LaTeX-compatible. You may use LaTeX commands to indicate special symbols, inline math or equations, or tables. See our LaTeX Pointers document for help. You can either enter the text directly in the form provided (cutting and pasting works well, too) or in the case of the technical description attach a file that has been previously prepared.

• Technical description. Describe the observations to be made using the selected Observatory-Telescope-Instrument combination. Justify the specific telescope, the number of nights, the instrument, and the lunar phase requested. Describe clearly all scheduling requirements. Discuss any instrument specific instrumental, procedural, calibration, or data reduction issues related to your proposed program. List objects (or sample objects), coordinates, and magnitudes (or surface brightness, if appropriate) in the Target Tables section of this form, or optionally in a LaTeX-coded table in this section. Target Tables of objects are required for queue or service runs.

  Exposure time calculators (ETCs) for some optical and IR instruments in use at CTIO and at KPNO are available to assist you with the preparation of your proposal.

  • Imaging ETC

  • Spectroscopy ETC

• Special instrument requirements. Describe briefly any special or non-standard usage of instrumentation.

There are six parts to this section of the Web proposal form. Be sure to fill out each part. Survey proposals are allowed no more than 8 pages total for the Scientific Justification, Experimental Design, Management Plan, Other Facilities, Release of Data, and Past Use sections, including figures and references.

These entries must be LaTeX-compatible. You may use LaTeX commands to indicate special symbols, inline math or equations, or tables. See our LaTeX Pointers document for help. You can either enter the text directly in the form provided (cutting and pasting works well, too) or attach a file that has been previously prepared.

HINT: If you are doing multiple cuts/pastes into the same form window, be sure to set the cursor in the form window with the left mouse button just before you paste in the information with the middle mouse button. Note that you should only cut and paste from a text window and not from an editor like WORD where special characters may be carried along with the text and cause problems later on down the processing chain.

Part 1: Abstract of Scientific Justification

Give a general abstract of the scientific justification appropriate for a non-specialist. Limit yourself to approximately 175 words. Abstracts of accepted proposals will be made publicly available.

Part 2: Scientific Justification

Give the scientific justification for the proposed observations. Make sure that you discuss:

• Primary science drivers, including the overall significance to astronomy
• Advances compared with extant databases
• Additional potential uses of the survey database
• The role of the survey in (a) enabling other science and (b) preparing observing programs for large ground-based and/or space-based facilities
• Relationship to other surveys ongoing or planned

Figures that are included with this proposal may be referenced from this or other sections of the proposal, i.e., Figure 1, Figure 2, or Figure 3. Figures will appear following the scientific justification. Do NOT use LaTeX commands for embedding figures into this section, however.

References may be included at the end of this section using the "reference" environment, as in the example below (journal commands are compatible with AASTeX v4.0):

\begin{references}
\reference Armandroff \& Massey 1991 \aj, 102, 927.
\reference Berkhuijsen \& Humphreys 1989 \aap, 214, 68.
\reference Massey 1993 in Massive Stars: Their Lives in the Interstellar
  Medium (Review), ed. J. P. Cassinelli and E. B. Churchwell, p. 168.
\reference Massey \& Armandroff 1999, in prep.
\end{references}

Part 3: Experimental Design

This section should consist of text (or LaTeX-coded tables) only. Describe the survey experimental design and the observations planned in detail. Justify choice of telescope, instrument, and sensitivity goals in terms of the survey science goals. A key part of the survey proposal process is to justify the total duration of the program both in terms of the number of nights and the number and distribution of observing runs required. Please show explicitly how on-target exposure time, setup, and calibration requirements determine these parameters. Please do not include any overhead or allowance for bad weather. Based on a clear understanding of your observational strategy as outlined in this section, we will evaluate the need for augmenting the allocation to allow for bad weather. Additional items that should be discussed in this section include:

• Approach: sample selection; techniques/special requirements; special calibration needs; construction of data products; compatibility of specialized hardware with NOAO facilities.
• Discussion (if appropriate) of novel or special purpose instrumentation supplied by the survey team; support and interface implications; deliverables (fundamental dataset, catalogs, quality control data, algorithms, software); a summary of statistical reliability (e.g., completeness levels)

Part 4: Management Plan

This section should consist of text (or LaTeX-coded tables) only. The Management plan should describe the overall plan for conducting the proposed survey. Be sure to include:

• Approach: Discuss the organizational plan to execute the tasks required to complete the research goals and delivery of the data products. This discussion should include plans to support the observing runs, the pipeline processing plan, data reduction and analysis, archiving plan, data dissemination plan, and coordination of the survey with non-NOAO facilities or data sources.
• Personnel requirements: Discuss the roles of the survey team members and their anticipated levels of participation.
• Description of institutional/other support for the survey

Part 5: Use of Other Facilities or Resources

This section should consist of text only (no figures). Please limit to about a half page of printed text.

We are interested in understanding how observations made through NOAO observing opportunities complement or support data from other facilities both on the ground and in space.

Please describe how the proposed observations complement data from other facilities, including private observatories and both ground- and space-based telescopes. In addressing this question, take a broad view of your research program. Are the data to be obtained through this proposal going to help select samples for detailed observations using larger telescopes or from space observatories? Are these data going to be directly combined with data obtained elsewhere to test a hypothesis? Will these observations have relevance to other observations, even though the proposal stands on its own? For each of these other facilities, indicate the nature of the observations (yours or those of others), and describe the importance of the observations proposed here in the context of the entire program. Do you have an NSF grant that would provide resources to support the data processing, analysis, and publication of the observations proposed here.

Part 6: Release of Data

Describe the data products (reduced observations, single or stacked images, spectra, object catalogues, and so on) to be releases, as well as the timeline and mechanism of their release to the community. Please differentiate between intermediate products developed during the execution of the survey versus the final final products likely to be produced after the full observations have been obtained.

Part 7: Previous Use of NOAO Facilities

How effectively have you used NOAO telescope time in the past? List allocations of telescope time on NOAO facilities to the Principal Investigator during the past 2 years, together with the current status of the data (cite publications where appropriate). Mark any allocations of time related to the current proposal with a \relatedwork{} command.

Target tables provided in this section are required for all queue or service runs and are optional for classical observing. The information entered in these tables will be formatted for you as LaTeX tables and placed at the end of the appropriate run details section in the printed copy. Details about these target tables are provided on a separate page off the proposal home page - read this information before starting your tables.

Since target tables are tied to specific telescope-instrument combinations (runs), you may not start a target table for a run until the run has been specified on the "Enter Observing Runs" page.

Note that for iterative targets, only the parameters that need to be changed have to be specified. Once a parameter is specified in the table, it is retained until explicitly changed.

The fields in the target tables include:

  Object ID            specify a unique 3-digit number for each target
  Object               20 characters maximum
  RA                   e.g., xx:xx:xx.x
  DEC                  e.g., +-xx:xx:xx.x
  Epoch                e.g., 1950.3
  Magnitude  
  Filter  
  Exposure time        WIYN: in seconds PER EXPOSURE
  Number of exposures
  Days from new moon   use a number 0-14
  Sky condition        use "spec" or "phot"
  Seeing               max allowable PSF FWHM (arcsecs)
  Comment              20 characters maximum

Each proposal may include up to three figures and captions. For Web-prepared proposals two figure files may be placed side-by-side in one figure - this would be equivalent to \plottwo in LaTeX. The figure files should be well-behaved Encapsulated PostScript files. We will recompute a new bounding box for each figure file that is "attached" just in case the original bounding box is off a bit. If the "rotate" option is selected we will rotate the figure file and then compute a new bounding box for this rotated figure. All of these operations will modify the original PostScript figure file. If the figure contains only one figure file a "scaling factor" will be applied if that option is selected.

We will automatically place the figures for your Web-prepared proposal for you at the end of the "Scientific Justification" section of your proposal (please do not include any LaTeX figure commands in the "Scientific Justification", or any other part of your proposal form). You may adjust the "scaling factor" for single figures to improve the overall appearance of the figures in your proposal, as needed (use the "View PS File" button). The "scale" option is a no-op for side-by-side figures. Note that it may not be practical to submit figure files larger than 1 Mb through the Web proposal process.

If you plan to submit your proposal using the Web submission process then any figures that are part of your proposal must be "attached" (as unencoded files) to this proposal through the Web form provided. We ask that you not submit your proposal using the Web form and then plan to send the figures separately by email - we have no way to handle a "mixed" submission. You may, however, use the Web form to prepare your proposal, including any captions to your figures, and then have the LaTeX form emailed back to you for submission through the email submission process, if for some reason you can not "attach" your figures. Edit the returned LaTeX file, as needed, to correctly identify and scale your figures before you submit the proposal by email (instructions are in the LaTeX template). NOTE: If you plan to LaTeX your proposal locally and include figures you must have resident on your system an epsf.sty file - if you do not have this file you can FTP a copy from our anonymous FTP site at ftp.noao.edu in the noao directory.

We do urge you, of course, to use the figure "attachment" option. If you are having problems with your figures, e.g., they will not place on the figure page correctly, perhaps we can assist you. Contact us at noaoprop-help@noao.edu, including your username for the proposal in question and the type of problem you are experiencing; we may be able to intervene at our end and fix things so they work for you.

Corollary

If you are experiencing figure placement problems with the proposal that you are going to send to us by electronic mail you may be having "BoundingBox" problems. In order for the \plotone and \plottwo commands to work properly your figure file must be an Encapsulated PostScript file with a reasonable "BoundingBox".

• All PS files must have a first line similar to the following, at least the "%!" must be present to identify the file as PostScript.

  %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
  ...
  

• An EPS file must have a "BoundingBox" at the beginning of it, as in the following header. If there is a "BoundingBox" but it is at the end of the file, move it.

  %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0    
  %%Title: IRAF SGI plot
  %%Creator: sgi2ueps
  %%CreationDate: Thu Dec  3 10:38:03 1992
  %%BoundingBox: 72 396 540 708               <=====
  ...
  

  If your figure does not have a BoundingBox, or if it does but you are still having problems, you may be able to edit the file accordingly. Try this technique: send the PS figure to a PostScript printer and get a hardcopy of it.

        In Unix: lpr -P<printer> <filename>.ps
  

  Now with a ruler, measure the lower left corner of the plot relative to the left edge of the paper (llx) and the bottom of the paper (lly). Do the same for the upper right corner of the plot (urx, ury). Convert these numbers to PS units (1 inch = 72 PS units) and edit them into your file as in the following:

   
                 %%BoundingBox: <llx> <lly> <urx> <ury>
  

If you continue to have problems do not get discouraged. Contact us at noaoprop-help@noao.edu - we may be able to assist you.