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AOT52 Call for Proposals. Deadline submission on Monday May 26th, 12:00 UT

 |  Admin  |  2025

CALL FOR PROPOSALS TNG and REM

AOT52 (2025B) is now open for proposals.
Applications for observing time for the periods

October 1st, 2025 - March 31st, 2026

are solicited and should be submitted by
Monday, May 26th, 2025, 12:00 UT.

The available time offered in this call at TNG via INAF-TAC is 48 nights, 14 of which are reserved to exo-planetary research programs (see special notices below) and 34 are for other science programs. We encourage applicants to submit proposals asking a row of consecutive nights to be done in visitor mode. The budget can increase if not all the nights offered in other calls will be effectively allocated by the respective TACs. The foreseen schedule breakdown is reported at the bottom. All proposals will be judged strictly on their scientific merit.

LARGE PROGRAMS or LONG-TERM PROGRAMS can NOT be requested answering the AOT52 call.

We will be accepting (few) Director's Discretionary Time proposals during the whole semester (https://www.tng.iac.es/observing/director_time_policy.html), which will be judged by the TNG staff in a few days. These observations will be performed in Service Mode only.

New application forms and detailed instructions can be downloaded from the TNG web pages (https://www.tng.iac.es/submit.html).

Following new ideas on the refereeing process, the PIs (ex officio) and CoIs (from 2 to 5) could be used as external reviewers for the other proposals in this or next call. PIs should explicitly inform their CO-Is that they will have to accept the review of other proposals. (Box 16).

Incomplete computation of the overheads, poor target visibility in the semester and, in particular, dense monitoring are recurrent weaknesses pointed out when assessing the technical feasibility. Too dense cadence (like, e.g., 1 visit per week or less) will be considered not feasible due to scheduling issues.

Queueing mode is not available. Filler programs cannot be implemented.

Important information for a more careful preparation of the proposals are reported at https://tngweb.tng.iac.es/call/info.html

New Protected Targets accepted by TAC will form a list available at this address: (https://www.tng.iac.es/observing/protected.html)

TNG is a 3.58-m optical/infrared telescope located at Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory in the island of La Palma (Canary Islands). Its primary mirror is corrected by Active Optics and it is equipped with instruments for imaging and spectroscopy, spanning the optical and near infrared wavelengths range.
The offered instruments are: HARPS-N, NICS, DOLORES and GIANO-B (GIANO in Nasmyth B).
The observing mode GIARPS, simultaneously combining HARPS-N and GIANO-B, is also offered (see below).
For details, visit http://www.tng.iac.es

REM is a 60-cm robotic telescope located at La Silla ESO site (Chile) which can observe simultaneously with a visible and an infrared camera. The observations will be carried out in unmanned, queuing mode. INAF-TAC will allocate 1000 hours of observations.
REM is equipped with ROS2 visible camera and REMIR infrared camera. The two are observing simultaneously thanks to a dichroic.
ROS2 will produce simultaneous images in the four Sloan-like passbands g, r, i, z. Charged time is therefore not the sum of ROS2 and REMIR, but the greater between the two.
For details, see http://www.rem.inaf.it

NOTICE FOR AOT52

harps

 

 

Exo-Planetary Research Programs

The renewed agreement between INAF and HARPS-N Collaboration allows and promotes the use of HARPS-N at the TNG until AOT57 (2028A) included. A minimum of 75 nights per semester will be dedicated to exo-planetary programs from Italian PIs or non-Italian but affiliated to the HARPS-N Collaboration. 10 of these nights are reserved to Early Carrer Researchers (ECR), i.e. less than 5 years old from the discussion of their PhD thesis. Programs related to exo-planetary research will be reviewed by a dedicated TAC sub-panel and judged only for their scientific merit. The agreement between INAF and the HARPS-N Collaboration specifies that the available 75 nights per semester will be roughly equally distributed between the parties and that joint PI-ships between the parties are welcome and encouraged.

Due to the high demand in this research field, for this semester AOT52 4 additional nights will be dedicated to Exo-Planetary science (not necessarily ECR programs) that can be accomplished within the semester (e.g. transits, atmospheres, etc.). The programs submitted in the context of this additional observing time should not be intended as extensions of the ongoing Exo-Planetary Large Programs.

exoplanets

IMPORTANT notes on time-sharing among programs of exoplanetary science

Researchers who would like to submit a proposal on exo-planetary science needing monitoring of radial velocities over a wide range of dates, should also take into account the following considerations:

  • There are several Large Programs on exo-planetary science ongoing at the TNG, with granted time until AOT57 (or 2028A). To optimize the scientific return for their science goals, the two main scientific groups with approved LPs (HARPS-N and GAPS collaborations) already agreed on sharing the observing time at the telescope.
  • Exo-planetary science (with HARPS-N and/or GIANO-B) is not the only observing mode of the TNG. Other science cases with different instruments have been approved which means that dense monitoring with frequent observations every few days is not possible, even in case of time-sharing (TS). TS is only available when exo-planetary science programs are scheduled and even so, on a best effort basis.
  • At the earliest time, or at least one week before the closure of a new call for Observing time (TAC, CAT, ITP, ORP), the researchers who know that their science goal could only be attained with TS should properly fill the form available at the following link: https://forms.gle/Puecao5LQ9nmGEKD6.
  • The form will only be available on-line until one week before the deadline of the call. Fail to submit the compiled form in due time will imply that the program is technically unfeasible.
  • The final acceptance of the TS by the other groups is subjected to the following constraints:
    • The scientific goals of the programs joining the TS should not overlap with the scientific goals of the programs already in the TS group;
    • The target list should not encompass targets for which one of the programs in the TS has already expressed interest. In case of a strong and justified interest on the same target, a spirit of collaboration is encouraged and a policy on the use and publication of the data should be agreed before submitting the proposal. The time allocation committees judging the proposal should be informed of the possible conflict due to mutual interest and know in advance if the groups already agreed on collaborating;
    • The scheduling of the targets of the new proposal will be organized on a best effort basis and in any case will not be detrimental for other programs already in the TS. Asking for TS is accepting the scheduling of the targets organized by one of the two main groups;
    • PIs of the proposal accept to provide observers for the scheduled nights who: [1] will follow the scheduled observations from the schedulers of the two main groups (HARPS-N Collaboration and GAPS) and [2] will accept that the observing shift could be larger than the assigned time to their proposal (i.e. assigned 1 night to the proposal, but could be observing for 3 consecutive nights);
    • PIs of the proposal accept that the calculated percentage of shared time will be based on the allocated time by the TAC and that the bad weather loss will be equally distributed with the same percentage;
    • Time Constraint observations (transits) are typically not included in the TS, however the hours of the night outside the transit could be used for TS;
    • PIs and observers of programs within the TS will respect a no disclosure of the data from other programs.
  • Proposals that fail to demonstrate that an agreement of TS has been reached will be considered as technically unfeasible by the TNG staff.

sifap2

SiFAP2 offered as a visitor instrument at TNG

The high-temporal resolution photometer SiFAP2 is available as a visitor instrument at the TNG. It is not a common-user instrument, but it will be supported for a maximum of 27 hours. Before submitting the proposal, the proponent team must contact the SiFAP2 PI Alessandro Papitto (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for a technical validation. Publications based on SiFAP2 data must include builders as co-authors. For more information about SiFAP2 and the available observing modes (photometry and linear polarimetry) see https://www.tng.iac.es/instruments/sifap2/.

lrs_scaled

Polarimetry with DOLORES unavailable during semester AOT52

The PAOLO polarimeter will be unavailable during the semester AOT52 (2025B).

giarps

The observational mode GIARPS at TNG

The light from the telescope is split into visible and infrared domains by means of a dichroic. The former feeds as usual HARPS-N, the latter is beamed into the new preslit of GIANO-B. The slit of GIANO-B is directly fed through a new optical relay instead of the previous fiber fed preslit. For efficiency and for overheads, please use the old GIANO page and recipe to prepare your proposals. They will serve as an upper limit.

For those proposals wishing to use the dual GIARPS mode, please tick both HARPS-N and GIANO-B boxes in the submission form, and state it clearly in the text. Proponents must also report the respective total HARPS-N and GIANO-B observing times. The greater value will constitute the effective time request of the proposal. For technical reasons, please indicate the preferred instrument.

Bandiera Italiana

NATIONALITY RESTRICTIONS APPLY

INAF-TAC is receiving only Italian proposals for TNG, defined as the PI and at least half of the participants being affiliated to an Italian Institution. However, proposals belonging to the exo-planetary research area can be submitted by Italian PIs or by any PI affiliated to the HARPS-N Collaboration.

The Nationality restriction does not apply to REM proposals.

clessidra

AOT52 TIME BREAKDOWN

For sake of completeness, we report the foreseen TNG-time breakdown for the AOT52 semester

  • 34 nights (this call) for the INAF-TAC;
  • 10 nights (this call) for the Exo-planetary science Program reserved to Early Career Researchers;
  • 4 nights (this call) for generic Exo-planetary science Programs;
  • 65 nights for the ongoing Large Programs of Exo-Planetary science;
  • 6 nights for the ongoing INAF Long-Term Programs;
  • 31 nights for the Spanish CAT;
  • 8 nights for the CCI International Time Program.

REM available time is 1000 hours.

Adriano Ghedina Director Telescopio Nazionale Galileo

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