Call for proposals

Observing time is allocated on the basis of scientific merit of the applications. Large project proposal call is opened every two years, while Small project proposals can be submitted to proposal.oapd at inaf.it anytime (templates below).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is mandatory that publications based on Ekar-Asiago proprietary or archive observations shall have in a footnote on the first page of the article or in the Acknowledgments section the following citation: "based on observations collected at Copernico 1.82m telescope [or/and Schmidt 67/92 telescope] (Asiago Mount Ekar, Italy) INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova."

ALLOCATION PROCEDURE

• Call announcement: Observing period Feb. 2024 - Jan 2026 (PDF) *** close ***

• Large proposal template - 2024 - (.docx) *** close ***

• Small proposal template - 2024 - (.docx) *** ALWAYS OPEN ***

• List of allocated Large programs

SCHEDULE

Monthly schedule is available from this link.

NIGHT REPORT

Observers are asked to fill the night report indicating clearly any problems that have arisen during the night. Hopefully, this will allows the technical staff to promptly fix an issue. You can find the form to be filled from here.

SERVICE MODE

At the Copernico 1.82m telescope a limited number of Small programs are conducted in Service Mode. These observations will be performed by staff observers during dedicated nights. Fill this form.  

TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY (ToO)

At the Copernico 1.82m telescope ToO may be executed during the nights allocated for other projects. ToO must be sent by the PI or Co-I of already approved and running Large proposals to the night observers and, in CC, to proposal.oapd at inaf.it.

A ToO observation can be should take less than 1 hour to be performed (calibrations and standards included). No compensation for time lost is given to the observer. Observers are invited to collaborate where possible in applications for ToO observations.

For all others ToO triggers, the proposers must follow the procedure for the activation of Small proposals. The telescopes coordinators will arrange the approved observations.

ACCOMMODATION FOR THE VISITOR ASTRONOMERS

Observations at Copernico 1.82m telescope are performed remotely from the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory of the University. A couple of guest rooms (n. 3 and n. 4) are  always reserved for hosting two observers. No restaurant facility is provided at the Observatory, except for a small kitchen located in the same building as the guest rooms. Accommodation in town is also a good option.

OBSERVING CONSTRAINTS AND RULES (see also this web page)

A number of distributed probes record the temperature, humidity inside and outside the dome, the wind speed, the sky overcast, rain rate, etc. These data are archived by the weather monitoring system and are visible for the observer in the Meteo web page: https://web.oapd.inaf.it/meteo-ekar/meteo.php. The software that controls the remote observing will, in any case, warn the observer on the weather conditions and will interrupt the observations if no action is taken by the observer. All actions taken during the night, together with the weather conditions, will be stored in a log file for future inspection. The respect of the safety rules is the observer's responsibility. 

• Close or keep the dome closed when the relative humidity exceeds  95%

• Close the dome if the wind speed reaches, even if temporary (with a single gust), 10 m/s

• Close the dome when the sky quality index reaches values higher than -10 (overcast)

• Close the dome immediately if rain drops are recorded

Observers may check the rainfall/lightening status over the Asiago area in the radar images visible in the meteo web page.

AFOSC STANDARD SETUP AND CALIBRATIONS

In order to minimise the technical interventions and to have a more stable instrument, this is the standard AFOSC setup:

• Aperture wheel: slits 1.26”; 1.69”, 2.50” and 4.22”

• Filter wheel: u,B,V,g,r,i,z 

• Grism wheel: gr4, VPH6, VPH7

For this basic setup, the technical staff secures, every time AFOSC is mounted, the corresponding calibrations. They are taken with the CCD binned 2x2 and read-out modes of 50Kzx2 Hisens for spectroscopy and 1MHzx2 Hisens for imaging. Ne and Hg-Cd arcs are also secured for the different slits/grisms combinations. If observers need a different AFOSC setup they must communicate it to the telescope operating team well before (at least one week before) the beginning of the observations. In this case, it will be responsibility of the observer to take the appropriate calibrations. 

MANUALS

The complete list of technical reports is here.

OBSERVING WITH THE SCHMIDT 67/92 TELESCOPE

The Schmidt telescope operates only in fully robotic operational mode, without the presence of astronomers or technicians during night time. The observing blocks (OB) are submitted during daytime by the PIs of Large proposals. The Robotic System has a rapid-response capability and it can automatically interrupt regular observations in order to observe transient phenomena with higher priority.

OBSERVING AT ADONI (Asiago Adaptive Optics Facility)

The AO testing facility at the Coudè focus of the Copernico 1.82m telescope is available for on-sky experimentation. It is a permanent laboratory with the aim of hosting visiting multi-purpose instrumentation that may be directly tested on sky.

DATA STORAGE AND POLICY

The data obtained with both the telescopes have a proprietary period of 1 year since the date of the observation (after one year, the data become available to everybody), and are available from the INAF IA2 Archive: http://archives.ia2.inaf.it/aao/ 

Soon after acquisition and for the first 3 months, the files are archived also in a mirror site in Asiago/EKAR:

http://milliways-web.oapd.inaf.it/aao/ reachable only from the local LAN