The Cycle 16 Announcement Web Page provides links to information and documentation (including this Call for Proposals) that will be useful to you while preparing your proposals. This page will also provide any late-breaking updates on the Phase I process, and answers to frequently asked questions.
The Phase I Proposal Roadmap
http://apst.stsci.edu/apt/external/help/roadmap1.html
is a high level step-by-step guide to writing a Phase I Proposal. Links to the appropriate sections of various documents (Call for Proposals, Primer, etc.) are given for each step.
The HST Primer provides a basic introduction to the technical aspects of HST and its instruments, and explains how to request the appropriate number of orbits in a Phase I proposal. The HST Primer is accessible from the Cycle 16 Announcement Web Pages.
The Two-Gyro Handbook summarizes the impact of two-gyro operations on HST scheduling and observing efficiency. Should it prove necessary to update information on scientific performance, notification will be placed on the Cycle 16 Announcement page and relevant information will be provided at the Two-Gyro Science Mode Web Page.
The Instrument Handbooks are the primary source of information for the HST instruments. You should use current versions of the Instrument Handbooks when preparing a proposal. They are available for all instruments, including former instruments that may be of interest for Archival Research. Instrument-specific concerns related to two-gyro observations are included in the appropriate Instrument Handbooks. The Handbooks are distributed electronically, and can be accessed from the HST Instruments Web Page. This page also provides links to more detailed technical information, such as that provided in Instrument Science Reports.
The Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT) was introduced in Cycle 12 as the interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST. The Cycle 16 version of APT has some minor bug fixes and enhancements included, but is basically the same system that was used in Cycle 15. See the What's New button in APT for details on the changes. The APT Web Page contains information on the installation and use of APT.
The Visual Target Tuner (VTT), used to display HST apertures on images of the sky, has been replaced by a new tool based on the Aladin Sky Atlas interface. This change provides more options for future enhancements, and brings a variety of benefits to users including access to a wide variety of images and catalogs, as well as more capabilities for displaying and manipulating images. Detailed information about the new Aladin-based tool can be found on the APT Web page.
STScI provides Exposure Time Calculators (ETCs) for each of the HST instruments. Please use those electronic tools to estimate how long you need to integrate to achieve the signal-to-noise ratio required for your project. The ETCs will also issue warnings about target count rates that exceed linearity and safety limits. The ETCs can be accessed from the individual instrument Web pages, which in turn are accessible from the HST Instruments Web Page.
The HST Data Archive is a part of the Multimission Archive at STScI (MAST). The HST Data Archive contains all the data taken by HST. Completed HST observations from both GO and GTO Programs are available to the community upon the expiration of their proprietary periods. Observations taken under the Treasury and public parallel programs carry no proprietary period.
The MAST Web page provides an overview of the HST Data Archive, as well as the procedures for retrieving archival data (see also the introductory description in Section 7.2 of the HST Primer). A copy of the HST Data Archive is maintained at the Space Telescope - European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF; see Appendix A.2) in Garching, to which European requests should normally be addressed. The Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC; see Appendix A.3) also maintains a copy of HST science data (only), and is the preferred source for Canadian astronomers.
The HST Data Archive provides access to several tools that allow you to check whether planned observations duplicate any previously executed or accepted HST observations. See Section 5.2.2 for details.
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