It includes some reports on problems fixed with Salticam and RSS. There are also good news regarding NIRWALS, which is ready for some shared-risked observations.
Enjoy the read, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas,
Anja
[SALT eNews] Konkurs wniosków obserwacyjnych na semestr 2024-1
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear colleagues,
We are now accepting SALT Phase 1 proposals for the period 1 May 2024 - 31 October 2024 (2024 Semester 1).
The Phase 1 proposal deadline is Friday, 2 February 2024, 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 linked below, including changes from previous semesters.
Regarding NIRWALS (SALT’s new IFU-Fed NIR spectrograph), the commissioning and science verification phases are essentially complete, and guaranteed time observations for the instrument team are starting. For Semester 2024-1, 30 hours of telescope time have been set aside for NIRWALS science proposals on a shared risk basis.
PIs intending to use NIRWALS during semester 2024-1 are requested to indicate in their proposal:
a) that they have the capability and willingness to reduce/analyse NIRWALS data using software tools that may require manual tweaking in the event that the full science pipeline has not been completed,
b) discuss how their proposal would help get NIRWALS into routine science operations (for example, by writing brief reports on data quality, providing feedback and suggestions for improving the PIPT and/or the science data pipeline, or describing new methodology for specific science cases).
Please submit your proposal via the SALT Principal Investigator Proposal Tool (PIPT). You may continue to use v5.5 unless you intend to use the new grating, in which case please update to the latest version available on the website. Instructions, software, and other information about proposing for SALT can be found on the SALT website. Note also that the web manager will ask for some user statistics, which the SAAO is now required to capture for reporting purposes.
As usual, there are lots of news in this issue: all the nitty gritty details on
how the tracker was fixed, some updates on the LFC and timDimm, and we also show
you some nice pictures from the SALT conference in June.
[SALT eNews] Konkurs wniosków obserwacyjnych na semestr 2023-2
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear Colleagues,
We are now accepting SALT Phase 1 proposals for the period 1 November 2023 - 30 April 2024 (2023 Semester 2).
The Phase 1 proposal deadline is Friday, 28 July 2019, at 18:00 SAST (corresponding to 16:00 UTC).
This proposal call is for SALTICAM, RSS and HRS. All details of the status of specific instrument modes are available in the Call for Proposals link below, including changes from previous semesters.
NIRWALS proposals are not being requested in this call. The commissioning and integration of NIRWALS into SALT is progressing well, albeit at a slower pace than anticipated; the instrument+telescope is not yet ready for a regular science call. SALT and the NIRWALS team would like to work closely with interested PIs to start NIR science during semester 2023-2 as soon as the instrument is ready, likely in early 2024. Please get in touch with the commissioning team via salthelp@salt.ac.za if you are interested in getting involved during the early science period. We will contact PIs who have submitted NIR proposals in previous calls. In addition to engineering time, up to 30 hours of DDT will be made available for early NIRWALS science.
Proposals requesting brighter Moon or poorer seeing conditions are particularly encouraged, as we have noticed a significant drop in such proposals over the last few 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.
in both low as well as high resolution. As it was last year, we are not
able to send out hard copies, but feel free to pick up a copy either at the
library at the SAAO in Cape Town or at SALT exhibition booths of
international conferences.
SALT Science Conference - ostateczny termin składania streszczeń i wniosków o wsparcie finansowe 31 stycznia
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear colleagues,
A reminder that registration for the SALT conference - Science
Highlights from SALT - to be held in Poland from 1-3 June 2023 is open
and that the deadline for abstract submission and to apply for financial
support is tomorrow, 31 January. The registration deadline is 28
February.
Kind regards,
Joanna
---
We are pleased to invite the 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.
We look forward to you participation!
On behalf of the SOC and LOC,
Joanna Mikołajewska & Marek Sarna
[SALT eNews] Przedłużenie terminu składania wniosków obserwacyjnych do 3 lutego
+ Aktualizacja NIRWALS
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear SALT Community,
We are extending the SALT phase 1 proposal deadline for Semester 2023-1 by a week, to avoid the clash with the JWST deadline. Therefore, the new deadline is Friday 3 February 2023 at 16:00 UT.
We would also like to take the opportunity to give you a brief NIRWALS update:
As many of you already know, South Africa is subject to scheduled rolling power-cuts and these have been getting progressively worse (longer and more frequent) over the past few months. Since the NIRWALS instrument is extremely vulnerable to steep temperature gradients, the danger posed by the worsening power situation has led to delays in cooling the instrument to its operating temperature. This, in turn, has knock-on effects on the commissioning schedule. The instrument enclosure is being cooled this week and the hope is that we will soon be able to continue with the commissioning process that was planned for last November. Early on-sky data in October 2022 indicate NIRWALS performance is good, however, there are still unresolved technical risks concerning the fiber instrument feed that will not be understood until Feb/Mar of 2023 and other telescope+instrument systems that have not yet been tested. Consequently, shared-risk observations with the instrument in the 2023-1 semester may be delayed, but we will keep would-be users posted as the situation evolves.
Cheers,
Encarni on behalf of SALT Astronomy Operations and the NIRWALS PI
[SALT eNews] Ankieta Fabry-Pérot i przypomnienie o terminie składania wniosków obserwacyjnych
Oto oryginalna wiadomość:
Dear all,
Happy New Year! :)
We have received no responses to the anonymous FP survey we set up at the end of the year, but I think most of us were done with 2022 by then, so we have decided to keep it open for another week. Please let us know whether you are interested in this niche mode so we can make an informed decision as to whether to continue with the repairs.
