1.2 New and Important Features of Cycle 13
- Cycle 13 will start nominally in July 2004 and have a duration of one year.
- STScI experience with scheduling some Large and Treasury programs in Cycles 11 and 12 has shown that these can introduce substantial difficulties in developing an effective and efficient long-range observing schedule for HST. Proposers submitting Large and Treasury programs are asked to include additional technical detail in the "Description of the Observations" section to provide information on the scheduling aspects of their program.
The following features also deserve special mention, but have not changed since the last cycle:
- The Phase I proposal deadline, which traditionally fell in early September, has now been moved to January 23. Since the start of the cycle will continue to be in July, this change will shorten the time interval between the submission of observing proposals and the scheduling of the observations. This has important advantages. The pace of discoveries in astronomy has quickened and the possibility of writing proposals closer to the beginning of the observing cycle will allow the latest developments to be fully folded into the current round of proposals. Also, in some cases, it will now be possible to write proposals that are based on data obtained during the current observing cycle, thus making cogent follow-up proposals more likely.
- Starting in Cycle 12, a java-based software tool, APT (the Astronomer's Proposal Tools; see Section 1.4.4) is the new interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST. Please refer to Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 for a description of how to prepare and submit your Cycle 13 Phase I proposal using APT. The Phase I LaTeX templates that have been in use for many years will no longer be accepted.
- The proposal category of 'Innovative Programs' that existed in previous cycles was cancelled in Cycle 12. STScI continues to encourage the submission of proposals that explore new and innovative ways of using HST. However, these will now be dealt with in a similar manner as other observing proposals.
- The instruments offered for observations in Cycle 13 are: the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS); the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS); the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS); the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS); and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). ACS was installed on HST in March 2002 during servicing mission SM3B. NICMOS resumed operations after the installation of a cryo-cooling system. All instruments are working nominally at the time this document was written (Aug. 2003).
- In addition to the proposal categories that have existed for many cycles, STScI continues to solicit proposals in the categories of 'Treasury Proposals' (see Section 3.2.4), 'Theory Proposals' (see Section 3.5) and 'Legacy AR Proposals' (see Section 3.4.2), all of which were started successfully in Cycle 11. Also, it remains possible to request observing time on Chandra (see Section 3.7) or NOAO telescopes (see Section 3.8) in combination with requests for HST observations.
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