[SALT eNews] Konkurs wniosków obserwacyjnych na semestr 2023-1
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear colleagues,
We are now accepting SALT Phase 1 proposals for the period 1 May - 31 October 2023 (2023 Semester 1).
The Phase 1 proposal deadline is Friday, 27 January 2023, at 18:00 SAST (corresponding to 16:00 UTC ).
This proposal call is for SALTICAM, RSS, HRS and NIRWALS. All details of the status of specific instrument modes are available in the Call for Proposals link below, including changes from previous semesters.
Please note that NIRWALS commissioning has not yet been completed, so it is again being offered on a shared risk basis.
Proposals requesting brighter Moon or poorer seeing conditions are particularly encouraged, as we have noticed a significant drop for this group the last two semesters which is leading to a very uneven observing queue (i.e. observing gaps and tight competition in the best conditions).
Instructions, software, and other information about proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website.
This issue is bulging with news: not only updates on the instruments, but also
reports on conferences, meetings and announcements, including the plan to
establish a User's group.
[SALT eNews] Konferencja Naukowa SALT 1-3 czerwca 2023
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to invite the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) community to join us for a conference “Science Highlights from SALT”, to be held in Warsaw, Poland, from 1-3 June 2023. The conference aims to present the main achievements enabled by SALT and look forward to the most, also potentially, promising fields for SALT Science.
We hope that this meeting will provide an opportunity for the present and future SALT users to discuss scientific highlights, upcoming projects as well and strategic plans for future, and to promote close working relationships between scientists from different partner institutions and with different professional experience.
The conference is organized by Polish SALT Telescope Foundation and Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of Polish Academy of Sciences.
To find more details and to register please go to the conference website at
https://salt2023.pl/.
We encourage you to register as soon as possible, since the attendance at the workshop will be limited to 80 participants. If you wish to make an oral presentation you must submit your title and abstract by 31 January, 2023 and we shall inform speakers soon after 15 February. If you apply for financial support (which is limited) the deadline is also 31 January, 2023.
Please distribute this announcement to your colleagues.
We are looking forward to your participation.
On behalf of the SOC and LOC,
Joanna Mikołajewska & Marek Sarna
This issue's highlight (by far) is the achievement of the long awaited
NIR first light! Everyone is excited, and you all get the chance to try
it out soon. Also, the RSS updates are progressing nicely, and you hear
about some results of the questionnaire that made the rounds a while ago.
[SALT eNews] Oprogramowanie do składania wniosków obserwacyjnych
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear Colleagues,
Updated versions of the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal Tool (PIPT) and RSS simulator that include the NIR and PG0700 grating are now available through the SALT website:
https://astronomers.salt.ac.za/software/
For more information on the current call for proposals, please see the email below and the Call for Proposals documentation on the SALT website
(https://astronomers.salt.ac.za/proposals/).
[SALT eNews] Konkurs wniosków obserwacyjnych na semestr 2022-2
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear Colleagues,
We are now accepting SALT Phase 1 proposals for the period 1 November 2022 - 30 April 2023 (2022 Semester 2).
The Phase 1 proposal deadline is Friday, 29 July 2022, at 18:00 SAST (corresponding to 16:00 UTC ).
This proposal call is for SALTICAM, RSS, HRS and NIR. All details of the status of specific instrument modes are available in the Call for Proposals link below, including changes from previous semesters.
There are three major changes to highlight in this call:
1 - The NIR Integral Field Spectrograph is being offered for the first time, on a shared risk basis. The instrument is being installed at the telescope and it is expected to be commissioned during August/September. A document has been prepared by the NIR PI (link below) with the expected performance of the instrument to enable our users to estimate their time requests and the technical feasibility of their proposals for this phase 1 call. Please note that the phase 2 for this instrument will have its own separate deadline, which will be communicated to everyone once the instrument performance characteristics are known and the tools are ready.
2 - The RSS grating PG0300 will be permanently replaced with the new PG0700 grating.
3 - The SALTICAM imaging overheads have been increased significantly, to match the actual telescope performance.
Please submit your proposal via the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal Tool (PIPT), but please wait a couple of days if you plan to use the PG0700 grating on RSS or the NIR for the updated PIPT to be released.
Instructions, software, and other information about proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website.
[SALT eNews] Informacja zwrotna od użytkowników SALT
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear SALT Community,
We at SALT would like to improve our service to the SALT Community. In order to do this, we need your help: we need to know where we are dropping the ball and what would be most useful to work on. So we have prepared a simple anonymous questionnaire with NO compulsory answers to learn about any issues you’re having using SALT:
in both low as well as high resolution. Hard copies will become available
at the SAAO in Cape Town (next week), selected national and international
libraries and at SALT exhibition booths. If you want me to send you
directly a hard copy, please email me with your full postal address.
This time we report, among others, that the NIR instrument is on its way
(yay!), while the new RSS collimator triplet has already arrived. Also, the
HRS has undergone some much needed maintenance.
We wish you all a Happy Easter and hope that everyone stays safe and healthy!
