FAQs: GO 5

Please see the Cycle 5 Call for Proposals for more information regarding Cycle-5.

***General Cycle Information

Q:   When will the Cycle-5 Call for Proposals be issued?

A:   The Cycle-5 CP was issued on August 15, 2007, along with a slew of other updated documentation. Proposals are due November 16, 2007. For future dates for these sorts of events, consult the science schedule.

Q:   How much time do I have left to submit a proposal?

A:   See this page.

Q:   How does the selection process work?

A:   The evaluations of submitted proposals for a given cycle, conducted by Science Review Panels, are forwarded to a Time Allocation Committee (TAC), which is comprised of a Chair and the Panel Chairs. The TAC takes the results of the Science Review Panels and provide a consolidated list of recommendations to the SSC Director, who then makes the final selection of the cycle's research program. For more information about the proposal process, including the panel review of proposals, see the SPIE proceedings article on the Spitzer Space Telescope proposal process

Q:   How do I tell what objects have already been observed, with what instrument, and to what sensitivity?

A:   At any time, you can use Leopard to search by position for your favorite objects, and/or you can use Spot to download entire programs. (All the GO abstracts are online, if you wish to search by topic or PI.) You might also be interested in exactly what constitutes a duplicate observation, because the observation you are planning may not actually duplicate an existing observation.

There are also other tools to check and see if your target has already been observed -- there is a plain text ROC, and from within Spot, you can choose "Search programs" under the "file" menu to search for other AORs near your target.

Q:   I'm not a U.S. citizen, and I work in a different country. I don't normally have access to telescopes like Gemini. Can I still apply for a joint proposal using these other telescopes?

A:   There are no restrictions on who can apply for the time at the other observatories. You still can't get funding, however, unless you work at a US institution.

Q:   Can I apply for a joint proposal using other observatories in addition to Spitzer?

A:   Yes, submit a single proposal and put as many observatories (up to two, NOAO and/or NRAO) as you need into the appropriate window in Spot.

Q:   Can I propose for observing time and archival research at the same time, with the same proposal?

A:   If you want money for working on archival data, that must be submitted as an archive (AR) proposal. If you want telescope time for new observations, that must be submitted as an observing (GO) proposal. So alas, you will need to submit 2 proposals, one focussing on the new observations, the second focussing on the archival data.

Q:   When are the three Spitzer instruments (IRAC, IRS and MIPS) going to be on during Cycle-5 and when are the MIPS cold campaigns (160 micron observations)?

A:   The times when the Spitzer instruments are on and MIPS 160 micron observations are possible during Cycle-5 will not be known until we have a list of approved Cycle-5 programs and have determined how the requested observations drive scheduling. The spacing of campaigns for each instrument in Cycle-5 will be approximately 35 days, with each instrument on for 7-21 days at a time. Observers should plan their observations (and place constraints, if needed and well justified) without being concerned whether the instrument will be on at a given time.

***Formatting Questions

Q:   What is the preferred format for Spitzer Proposals?

A:   You MUST use the Proposal Templates, and you can choose from LaTeX and Word format.

Q:   How do I make a PDF file on [my platform]?

A:   Please see the document entitled "How to make PDF files" for instructions on how to generate a PDF file from several platforms, with or without the Adobe products.

Q:   Do I have to prepend the coversheet info to my proposal PDF file before I submit my 'scientific justification' PDF file?

A:   No, proposers should NOT prepend the coversheet information to their scientific justification file that they submit to the SSC. This feature is for users who may want to create an electronic copy of a 'complete Spitzer proposal' for their own use. The SSC will generate a coversheet from the latest, final coversheet information you submit with your proposal and prepend it to your final scientific justification PDF file for our use.

Q:   Do I have to append the AORs themselves into my proposal PDF file before I submit my 'scientific justification' PDF file?

A:   No, ALL of the AORs in your Spot AOR window are sent along with your proposal by the Spot proposal tool. Be sure that all of the AORs in your window are ones you want as part of your proposal (no test AORs, etc).

Q:   What is the maximum size for the PDF part of the proposal?

A:   The maximum size is 10 MB. To get your file size down, be sure that your figures are all black-and-white, and that the resolution is no more than 300 dpi.

Q:   So do I HAVE to use the proposal templates??

A:   Yes, you MUST use the templates.

Q:   I'm having trouble getting Latex to handle my figures properly. Can you help?

A:   Here are some things to try..

Put a \clearpage before the tables and figures section, and right after it.

If you're trying to put a second figure on the same page, then yes, it can be finicky about how many figures it will let you put on the same page. You may very well have to reduce them until latex is happy with their sizes. But, you can fake it out. Latex only knows about the bounding box on the ps file. I personally have had some problems when the plotting program that produces the ps creates excessive margins around the relevant bit -- e.g., the ps bounding box is 10cm wide, but the plot only takes up 6 or 8 of those 10 cm. So latex is trying to make space for the excess white space, which then looks funny on the compiled product. I've had some luck using a program like gimp to crop down the ps into a new version of the ps with less margin. Another solution I've used is to use gimp (or similar program) to put two figures next to each other and saving them as one file -- latex then just sees one figure, but your caption can now refer to "left" and "right" or "a" and "b" and have two figures occupy the vertical space previously occupied by just one.

Q:   How do I merge PDF files, like my coversheet to the rest of the file, or my cost plan to my science justification?

A:   If you have the full version of Acrobat, then under the "documents" menu, you can choose "insert pages" in order to merge the budget PDF file and the PDF from the main proposal template file into one big pdf file.

If you don't have the full version of Acrobat, then if you google "merging pdf files", you get more than 5 million hits, the first several of which look (a) free, and (b) like they might work on any unix platform.

***Funding Questions

Q:   I am a grad student (or postdoc) at an institution that won't let me handle the money. Can I be the "Scientific PI" of the proposal, and have my advisor be the "Administrative PI"?

A:   We do accept proposals from graduate students as the PI. If your institution requires a faculty member to be the administrative PI and handle all the funding, we support that. The grad student (or postdoc) can be the PI and when your proposal is approved and we contact you regarding the funding you should tell us who will be administrative PI.

Q:   Can I fund a non-U.S.-based collaborator's visit to my U.S. institution with Spitzer (GO/AR/TR) funds?

A:   No NASA funds can flow to non-U.S.-based institutions and non-U.S.-based investigators. Such investigators must obtain their own funds. We have relaxed this rule for graduate students and post-docs who typically do not have their own funding source. But for scientists with permanent jobs at foreign institutions we cannot request travel funds.

An exception is if your U.S.-based institution will appoint the non-U.S.-based collaborator to a real but temporary position at your U.S.-based institution. In that case, the investigator now holds a U.S.-based affiliation and you can support their visit (flights, stipend, etc.) for the duration of the appointment.

Q:   Is support for ground based observations needed to interpret Spitzer data an allowable cost for Spitzer proposals?

A:   Yes, for Archival or General Observer proposals, modest support for ground-based observations is allowed. One should not exceed 10-20% of the total requested/provided funds for such a component.

Q:   I am preparing a Spitzer proposal for ~10 hours of Spitzer time. Could you give me a rough estimate of what the data analysis funding will be?

A:   The funding is determined by formula. A rough estimate would be to use last year's Cycle-4 average of $3200/hour.