JAC Style guide: template
 PATT ITAC Report for Semester 97A
Allocations The individual partner TAGs hold meetings in their respective countries prior to the PATT session to assess applications deemed by the JCMT Board rule to be from their own country. At these meetings informal numbers of shifts are nominated for each application in a priority order. The Chairpersons of each TAG bring their respective lists to the PATT where the ITAC combine the awards, include discussion of the engineering and commissioning requirements, and assess the International applications. The final allocations of shifts are made by the ITAC.
Applications to be considered
UK status 40
Canadian status 18
Netherlands status 10
International status 14
University of Hawaii 7
TOTAL: 89
The PATT meeting was held at the ROE, Edinburgh, UK on 27th February 1997.
It should be noted that if the PI on an application is a JCMT staff member based in Hilo, then the application is assessed by the appropriate national TAG. However, by Board rule, International status is given to any application where the only named collaborator from any partner country is such a JCMT staff member. International applications are assessed by the ITAC members at their meeting.
Time Available (in 16-hour nights)
No. of nights in semester 96B 153.00
Engineering & Commissioning 42.00
Set aside for SCUBA 2nd round 30.00
University of Hawaii (10%) 7.75
Director's discretionary use 4.00
Available for PATT science: 69.25
The above table indicates the order in which nights are removed from the total available for the semester. Semester 97A covers a summer period from 1st March 1997 through 31st July 1997 inclusive. This is a shortened semester due to the inclusion by ITAC of February 1997 into the accounting for semester 96B.
Awards (in 16-hour nights)
UK status 32.00
Canadian status 14.50
Netherlands status 11.50
International status 11.25
University of Hawaii 7.75
TOTAL allocation: 77.00
Designated Service time
Allocations for this semester are:
CDN = 3.5 shifts allocated;
NL = 0 shifts allocated (but all Netherlands time is flexibly scheduled);
UK = 2.5 shifts allocated.
Non-standard Instrumentation
The Lethbridge Group have again requested to bring their own Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) system which will be located on the right-hand Nasmyth platform (the other side from SCUBA).
Instrument distribution:
RxA 35%
RxB 39%
RxC 14%
SBI 10%
FTS 2%
Applications with Long-Term Status
L/M/96A/C08 was given a further 3 night shifts and 9 day periods in 97A.
Use of Daytime Periods
There was considerable discussion about how to account for day period usage during the semester. This was prompted by the large amount of time requested by the comet Hale-Bopp observing groups, since the comet is basically a daytime object for the entire semester. Morning half-shifts are appropriate in March and July. It was decided that the ITAC can only allocate observations during the night periods from 17:30 through 09:30. They can recommend to the Director JCMT that certain applications should be considered for daytime observing. Any allocation of time thus given, at the Director's discretion, would not come from the national quotas. The ITAC recommendations for day period allocations were noted and accepted by the Director JCMT.
Engineering & Commissioning
In view of the large amount of time set aside for SCUBA 2nd round observing and for the commissioning of instrumentation (SCUBA and RxW), other E&C tasks have been kept to a minimum for the semester.
Commissioning of the antenna and instrumentation continues, with periods required a) to characterise and improve the surface via metrology and beam map measures, b) to monitor the antenna performance and tracking through pointing and inclinometry runs, and c) to measure receiver performances and efficiencies.
A period of extended days separated at fixed intervals has been set aside for re-grouting and welding the remaining joints on the antenna azimuth track.
Time has been allocated for commissioning of RxW and for SCUBA according to the commissioning plans made available by the instrument builders. There is a non-standard instrument configuration schedule for the new FTS system which requires set-up and calibration time on the right-hand Nasmyth platform. In addition, a single shift has been requested to ensure that the UKT14 polarimeter is setup correctly for use with RxA2.
A short-baseline interferometry session (SBI) has been arranged with the CSO to be run in early May 1997.
SCUBA 2nd Round
A total of 60 shifts have been set aside to be allocated for continuum observations pending the successful commissioning of SCUBA. The applications that had been awarded time at the previous ITAC meeting would remain in the queue. Once SCUBA was available for observing, the applicants would be able to revise their templates in view of the different source avalability and oberving parameters. It is anticipated that the distribution of these shifts will be according to the partner percentages.
It is likely that only the bright photometry applications will be acheivable this semester. All observations will be done in serviced mode with no facilities for remote eavesdropping being provided. The outstanding SCUBA applications will be carried over into semester 97B.
Fallback Programmes
A number of applications have been approved by the ITAC to be included in the schedule should RxW fail to meet the delivery schedules. The commissioning time set aside for these instruments will be apportioned according to the partner funding ratio after 10% has been given to the University of Hawaii. Applicants on these fallback programmes will be informed by the JCMT Scheduler when/if their time is to be scheduled.
In addition, there are numerous heterodyne applications set aside to be included as fallback for the SCUBA 2nd round. These fallbacks will continue to be done in serviced mode by JCMT staff.
Procedures for Semester 97B
The deadline for for semester 97B (August 1st 1997 through January 31st 1998) applications is 31st March 1997. The ITAC have decided that this is to be a HETERODYNE ONLY deadline. It has been decided NOT to invite SCUBA applications for this deadline because revised NEFDs etc will not be properly known until mid-late March at the earliest (following the current cool-down). They felt it better to delay the call for semester 97B SCUBA proposals until reliable figures have been established. Those SCUBA applicants who were successful in obtaining SCUBA time in the first '24-hour' SCUBA call last Autumn would be assured that it is still planned to implement these 'pilot' proposals as soon as SCUBA is performing with the required reliability.
The Allocations Table
Listings in the following table reflect the allocations made by the ITAC. Subsequent re-scheduling may already have modified some of these awards and added others.
Graeme Watt, JAC
(ITAC Technical Secretary & JCMT Scheduler)
Last Modification Date 1997/03/12 - Last Modification Author: Graeme Watt (gdw)
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