7.1 General Guidelines

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7.1.1 Deadline

The deadline for proposal submission is Friday 26 January 2007, 8:00 pm EST.

Please submit well before the deadline if possible, to avoid possible last-minute hardware or overloading problems, or network delays/outages. Late proposals will not be considered.

We strongly recommend that proposers start preparing their proposals early in order to give themselves enough time to learn the APT. How- ever, the APT will not be made available/released for Cycle 16 Phase I use until 6 December 2006. If you need a version prior to the formal release, please send your request to the STScI help desk, help@stsci.edu.

Questions about policies and technical issues should be addressed to the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) well before the deadline. While we attempt to answer all questions as rapidly as possible, we cannot guarantee a speedy response in the last week before the deadline.

7.1.2 Phase I Proposal Format

Cycle 16 proposals must be submitted electronically. Starting in Cycle 12, a java-based software tool, APT (the Astronomer’s Proposal Tool; see Section 1.4.6) is the new interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST.

The Phase I LaTeX templates that have been in use for many years will not be accepted in Cycle 16.

A Phase I proposal consists of two parts:

a completed APT proposal form (see Chapter 8); and
an attached PDF file (see Chapter 9).

Both are submitted to STScI directly from within APT. Note that Student Principal Investigators should also arrange for a certification letter to be sent by their faculty advisor (see Section 2.3.3).

Please study Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 carefully. Please do so well before the submission deadline, to give the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) ample time to answer any questions that you may have about the new procedures.

7.1.3 Page Limits for PDF Attachment

There are page limits on the size of your PDF attachment. Table 7.1 outlines these limits for different proposal categories.

Table 7.1: PDF Attachment Page Limits

Proposal Category	Reference Section in CP	Total Page Limit for PDF Attachment	Page Limit for the Scientific Justification (Section 9.1)
Regular GO1	3.2.1	8	3
Large GO2	3.2.2	11	6
Treasury GO	3.2.6	11	6
Survey	3.2.3	8	3
Snapshot	3.3	8	3
Theory	3.4.4	8	3
Regular AR3	3.4.1	8	3
Legacy AR	3.4.2	11	6

1Regular GO proposals include Calibration GO programs (Section 3.2.4), Joint HST/Chandra (Section 3.5), Joint HST-NOAO proposals (Section 3.6) and Regular HST/Spitzer Proposals (Section 3.7.1). 2Coordinated HST/Spitzer proposals (Section 3.7.2) have the same page limits as Large GO proposals. 3Regular AR proposals include Calibration AR programs (Section 3.4.3).

In relation to these page limits, note the following:

Proposals that exceed the page limits will be penalized in the review process; pages beyond the specified limits may be removed and will not be available to reviewers.
The figures and tables must appear after the text of the Science Justification. There are no limits on the numbers of figures, tables and references in the PDF attachment. However, the total page limit must be obeyed.
Your PDF attachment must be prepared with a font size of 12pt. Do not change the format of any of the templates that are provided by STScI.