The deadline for submission of observing proposals on IRAM
telescopes, both the interferometer and the 30m, is
Please avoid last minute submissions when the network could be congested. As an insurance against network congestion or failure, we still accept, in well justified cases, proposals submitted by:
Soon after the deadline the IRAM Scientific Secretariat sends an acknowledgement of receipt to the Principal Investigator of each proposal correctly received, together with the proposal registration number. Note that the web facility allows cancelation and modification of proposals before the deadline. The facility also allows to view the proposal in its final form as it appears after re-compilation at IRAM. We urge proposers to make use of this feature as we always receive a number of corrupted proposals (figures missing, blank pages, etc.).
Valid proposals contain the official cover page, up to two pages of text describing the scientific aims, and up to two more pages of figures, tables, and references. The normal proposals should not exceed these 5 pages. Except for the technical pages for the interferometer, longer proposals will be cut. The new Large Observing Programmes (see the announcement by P. Cox elsewhere in this Newsletter) have up to 4 pages for the scientific justification, plus cover page and 2 pages for supporting material.
The proposal template proposal.tex and the LATEX style
file proposal.sty may be obtained
from the IRAM web pages1 at URL ../GENERAL/submission/proposal.html.
In case of problems, contact the secretary, Fabienne Schicke,
(e-mail: berjaudiram.fr).
Please, make sure that your proposals use the current form pages.
In all cases, indicate on the proposal cover page whether your proposal is (or is not) a resubmission of a previously rejected proposal or a continuation of a previously accepted interferometer or 30m proposal. We request that the proposers describe very briefly in the introductory paragraph (automatically generated header ``Proposal history: '') why the proposal is being resubmitted (e.g. improved scientific justification) or is proposed to be continued (e.g. last observations suffered from bad weather).
Do not use characters smaller than 11pt. This could render your proposal illegible when copied or faxed. If we notice any formal problems before the deadline, we will make an effort to contact the principal investigator and solve the problem together.
Applications for short spacing observations have been simplified. If the need for complementary 30m observations is evident already at the time when the PdB interferometer proposal is prepared, just note this need on the interferometer proposal. A separate proposal for the 30m telescope is not required. The blank form for interferometer proposals contains a bullet, labelled ``short spacings'' which should then be checked. The interferometer style file will prompt for an additional paragraph in which the scientific need for the short spacings should be described. It is essential to give here all observational details, including size of map, sampling density and rms noise, spectral resolution, receiver configuration and time requested.
A mailing list has been set up for astronomers interested in being
notified about the availability of a new Call for Proposals. Our
web-based mailing list management facility can be found under the URL
(http://www.iram.fr/mailman/listinfo/). The
``Call for Proposals'' list presently contains all users of IRAM
telescopes during the last 2 years; you can subscribe or unsubscribe
as you see fit.