Arizona's Telescope Allocation Committee

TAC Membership

The TAC is small, and each member grades every proposal. Therefore, almost every proposal is read and graded by non-experts. It is essential that proposers present the scientific motivation for their proposal in language that astronomers outside their specific field can easily understand. This year's TAC members are:

NAME INSTITUTION SPECIALITY
D. McCarthy (Chair) Steward IR, instruments, solar system, brown dwarfs, education
J. Eisner Steward star formation, extrasolar planets, astrobiology
G. Rieke Steward instrumentation, infrared astronomy, galactic and extra-galactic astronomy
D. Zaritsky Steward cosmology, galactic astronomy
C. Griffith Lunar & Planetary Lab planetary atmospheres, Titan
P. Scowen Arizona State Univ. star formation in galaxies, instrumentation
R. Windhorst Arizona State Univ. galaxy formation and evolution, cosmology
D. Trilling Northern Arizona Univ. stellar and planetary systems, planets

TAC Procedures

Steward Observatory schedules its telescopes in trimesters. The TAC uses trimesters 2008A and 2008B to align with the Magellan I/II schedules which are based on a semester system.

Before each meeting, TAC members read and grade every proposal except in cases of a conflict of interest. Telescope schedulers provide the TAC a list of available time (bright, gray, dark). For each telescope, proposals are then ranked according to their average grade.

TAC members generally base their grades on

  • overall scientific merit and feasibility;
  • demonstrated productivity using Arizona facilities such as refereed publications, conference proceedings, and prompt analysis of data;
  • availability of time requested.

    • The TAC meets approximately two weeks after the deadline for proposals. During its meetings, the TAC discusses these rankings as well as each individual proposal. Members may change their grades based on this discussion, and proposals may be re-ranked. The final rankings are provided to the schedulers who generate a preliminary schedule for all telescopes. A final schedule is posted online about one month prior to the start of the next trimester.