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Proposal preparation

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Phase I Checklist

  • Instrument configuration:
    • Is the filter (for imaging) and the filter, slit and grating (for spectroscopy) specified in the proposal instrument resource list?
    • Is the grating you need available?
    • Does your choice of slit and grating give appropriate spectral resolution and wavelength coverage?
  • Telescope peripheral wavefront sensors:
    • It is not recommended to use the peripheral wavefront sensors with GMOS in most cases. Have you made sure that an OIWFS guide star is selected?
  • On-instrument wavefront sensor
    • Have checked for vignetting caused by the OIWFS?
    • Will your OIWFS guide star likely be accessible at all dither positions?
  • Calibrations:
    • Are the baseline calibrations sufficient? If not, what additional calibration data are required for your program?
    • Is photometry better than 5% needed? If so, have appropriate photometric observations been included?
    • Does your imaging program require any special observing or calibration strategies in view of photometry or flat-fielding to deal with the different quantum efficiency characteristics of the three chips in the GMOS Hamamatsu detector arrays?
    • Is absolute spectrophotometric calibration needed? If so, have appropriate spectroscopic standard star observations been included?
    • Is accurate removal of telluric lines needed? If so, have telluric standard stars been included?
    • Has sufficient observing time been requested for additional calibrations?
  • Observing time:
    • Did you confirm the exposure time and S/N using the GMOS Integration Time Calculator (North or South)?
    • Did you adjust the observing conditions specified for the GMOS Integration Time Calculator (North or South) to match your requested conditions?
    • Are overheads included in the time requested in your proposal?
    • If you propose to use Nod-and-Shuffle on GMOS North, you need to add the additional overheads for Nod-and-Shuffle to the time requested.
    • Have overheads been included for additional calibrations?
    • If many very short exposures are needed, you may need to include larger overheads to account for the lower observing efficiency.
    • If accurate centering of the slit on the target is essential, have appropriate overheads been included to allow periodic checks of the slit centering?
  • Observing conditions requested (for queue-scheduled observations):
    • Is the expected image quality (scaled to the airmass of your target) sufficient for your program? What is the minimum image quality necessary for the science?
    • What level of cloud cover is acceptable? Is photometric weather required?
    • Is dark time required?
    • Note the product of the probabilities of each of the conditions listed above. You might wish to reconsider the minimum requirements of your program, and/or consider submitting your project as a queue-scheduled observation.
  • Recheck the observing conditions requested!

Proposal preparation | Gemini Observatory

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