Call for Proposals for the
NASA Infrared Telescope Facility

DEADLINE: Monday 01 April 2013

NASA Infrared Telescope Facility Observing Proposals. The due date for the 2013B semester (August 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014) is Monday, April 1, 2013. See our online submission form. Information on available facility and visitor instruments can be found at: http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/Facility. Remote observing is available with SpeX, NSFCAM, CSHELL, and MORIS. NSFCAM has been upgraded with a new array; please see the instrument webpage for more information.

Important notice: SpeX will be available for the 2013B semester. We now anticipate that SpeX will be taken off line on Feb. 01, 2014, and will be unavailable for the entire 2014A semester (Feb. 1, 2014 – July 31, 2014). This is necessary to upgrade SpeX with new arrays and array controllers. We strongly recommend observers to plan their observing accordingly. We also expect to accommodate key projects requiring large amounts of observing time using CSHELL, NSFCAM, and visitor instruments during semester 2014A. The delay of the SpeX downtime is due to engineering resources that were diverted to fix the dome drive system.

C/2012 S1 (ISON) observing campaign: We encourage proposals to observe comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), a recently discovered Oort Cloud comet with perihelion passage on Nov. 28, 2013. It is expected to become extremely bright with a significant amount of daytime availability while the comet is brightest (see link to additional information below). Approximately 170 hours of observing time will be set aside for this campaign. All data obtained will be made public (within one week), and observing logs will be requested for archiving. We encourage observing groups to form collaborations to enhance the scientific return from the observations. When submitting a proposal, please note clearly that the proposal is submitted for the campaign. Groups with visitor instruments can participate in the campaign so long as the data and observing logs are allowed to be public.

Additional information on comet ISON observing can be downloaded at:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12111886/additional_information_for_comet_ISON.pdf

To keep our bibliography up to date and to ensure future funding of the IRTF: please check for your latest publications at:

http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/research/biblio/Refereed.html

http://irtfweb.ifa.hawaii.edu/research/biblio/Non_Refereed.html

and send to any missing references William Walters (walters@ifa.hawaii.edu).

We appreciate an acknowledgement in your papers to the IRTF and the instrument used.