Blanco Telescope (CTIO) Call for Proposals – Semester 2021A

The Victor M. Blanco Telescope
The Victor M. Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Image credit: David Walker

AAL is pleased to announce that five nights of CTIO time will be available to the Australian community on the 4m Blanco Telescope in Semester 2021A  (1 February 2021 – 31 July 2021). The proposal deadline is 6 October 2020, 17:00 AEDT.

Proposals will be assessed by the Australian Time Allocation Committee (ATAC), and must follow the new ATAC Policies and Procedures. Proposals must be submitted before the deadline using the Lens proposal form, see here

The Blanco telescope offers two instruments, the wide-field imaging camera DECam and the CTIO Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (COSMOS). Further details about the available nights and instruments can be found here. Note, though the CTIO remains closed due to COVID-19, proposals are being solicited for Semester 2021A. When it resumes, all CTIO observations are expected to be completed remotely, see here for further details.

A trial implementation of the dual-anonymous proposal review process for regular proposals (including for the Blanco Telescope) was implemented in 2020B, and will continue in 2021A. Proposers are required to anonymise their proposals following the guidelines here. Examples of re-worked text can be found here. A strict compliance with these guidelines is required.

Feedback regarding the trial or questions regarding this call should be sent to the ATAC Technical Secretary, or to the AAL Program Manager, Dr Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer.

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