Both unavailable. Only Visitor and Service modes will be offered in AOT51. Accepted programs have to be scheduled in fixed time slots.

Long Term programs can not be requested in AOT51.
Large programs can not be requested in AOT51.

Lists of protected targets are available at http://www.tng.iac.es/observing/protected.html

We intend to create a large database of potential reviewers to flank the TAC. To do this, the names and emails of the PI and at least 2 CoIs must be indicated. As an exception, a smaller number is allowed if there are less than three proponents.

The focal plane instruments NICS, GIANO-B, HARPS-N and DOLORES can be normally used during the same night either in service or in visitor mode. The exchange between instruments within the same Nasmyth focal station (i.e. DOLORES-HARPS-N) usually takes less than 6 minutes, while the change of Nasmyth (e.g. switching from NICS to DOLORES) may take up to about 15 minutes. All the switches can be repeated as many times as necessary.

The observing mode GIARPS, which uses simultaneously HARPS-N and GIANO-B, will be offered without restrictions.

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. Target visibility has to take this into account. Moreover, before submitting the proposal, the proponent team must contact the SiFAP2 PI Alessandro Papitto 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 www.tng.iac.es/instruments/sifap2/.

Overheads must be included in the justification of the requested time. Lacking or incomplete computation of the overheads may result in a downgrading of the proposal.

For DOLORES, these can be estimated as follows:

• Change of instruments within the night: see above
• Telescope pointing and guide-star acquisition: 5 minutes
• Centering object into the slit: 5 minutes for sources which are bright (i.e. clearly visible on a 1 min image) or with well known position relative to bright object(s) in the field. Direct centering on faint sources may be very inefficient and is not recommended.
• Change of instrumental setup (e.g. change of filter or grism with the the telescope tracking on the same object): 1 minute.
• CCD read-out: typically between 1 and 4 minutes, see the dedicated time calculator

NICS overheads: see the appropriate document
HARPS-N overheads: see the manual
GIANO-B overheads: see the appropriate document

The TNG monitoring capabilities are very limited, since its schedule is dominated by visitor and visitor-like mode observations. Proposals requesting very frequent, time-constrained visits have scarce chances to be accepted. In some cases, a prior time-sharing agreement with other programs may help, although it does not guarantee acceptance. The feasibility of monitoring proposals will be evaluated case by case.

IMPORTANT NOTE! 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 two weeks 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 contact the chairs of the 2 groups [Luca.Malavolta_at_unipd.it and Aldo.Bonomo_at_inaf.it] expressing their request for the TS and accepting 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;
  • In case of possible overlap among the scientific goals, the programs should provide a well-defined target list not encompassing 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.

MOS observations are bound to strict constraints on the number of masks and on the time necessary to design/manufacture them. See the dedicated web page for details.

The Nordic counterpart decided to not continue in the time-sharing agreement between TNG and NOT. Proposals from Nordic community should be submitted following the TransNational Access provided by the OPTICON-Radionet Pilot project. This is valid for Italian teams requesting the Nordic Optical Telescope, too.

Proposals requiring special observing procedures (e.g. more than 4/10 MOS masks per night/program) will be downgraded or not considered unless previously discussed with the TNG staff and authorized by the TNG director.

During visitor time, ToO observations will be performed by the visitor observer, with the instrument in use or by TNG staff in remote mode (on a best effort basis). Please read our ToO policy if you are planning to propose for ToO.

Please remember that any publication based on TNG data should be suitably acknowledged. A complete reference of, and a link to the paper should be communicated to the TNG