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
J. Liebert Steward stellar astronomy
D. McCarthy (Chair) Steward IR, instruments, solar system, brown dwarfs, education
G. Schneider Steward brown dwarfs, instrumentation, IR astronomy, extrasolar planets, stellar astronomy
D. Zaritsky Steward cosmology, galactic astronomy
J. Holberg Lunar & Planetary Lab planetary rings & atmospheres
R. Jansen Arizona State Univ. extragalactic astronomy, cosmology
P. Massey Northern Arizona Univ. massive stars, initial mass function, Local Group galaxies, optical instrumentation

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.