7.1 General Guidelines

7.1.1 Deadline

7.1.2 Phase I Proposal Format

7.1.3 Page Limits for PDF Attachment

7.1.1

Deadline

 

The deadline for proposal submission is Friday, February 24, 2012, 8:00 pm EST.

Please submit well before the deadline whenever possible, to avoid possible last-minute hardware or overloading problems, or network delays/outages. Late proposals will not be considered.

 

We strongly recommend that proposers start preparing their proposals early in order to give themselves enough time to learn APT. However, APT will not be made available/released for Cycle 20 Phase I use until mid-January 2012. If you need a version prior to the formal release, please send your request to the STScI Help Desk, help@stsci.edu.

Questions about policies and technical issues should be addressed to the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) well before the deadline. While we attempt to answer all questions as rapidly as possible, we cannot guarantee a speedy response in the last week before the deadline.

7.1.2

Phase I Proposal Format

Cycle 20 proposals must be submitted electronically. A Java-based software tool, APT (the Astronomer’s Proposal Tool; see Section 1.4.5) is the interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST.

A Phase I proposal consists of two parts:

•	a completed APT proposal form (see Chapter 8); and

•	an attached PDF file (see Chapter 9).

Both are submitted to STScI directly from within APT. Student Principal Investigators should also arrange for a certification letter to be sent by their faculty advisor (see Section 2.3.3).

Please study Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 9 carefully. We recommend doing so well before the submission deadline, to give the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) ample time to answer any questions you may have.

7.1.3

Page Limits for PDF Attachment

There are page limits on the size of your PDF attachment. Table 7.1 outlines these limits for different proposal categories.

Table 7.1: PDF Attachment Page Limits

Proposal Category	Reference Section in CP	Total Page Limit for PDF Attachment	Page Limit for the text of the Scientific Justification (Section 9.1)
Regular GO1	3.2.1	8	3
Large GO	3.2.2	11	6
Treasury GO	3.2.5	11	6
Snapshot	3.3	8	3
Theory	3.4.4	8	3
Regular AR2	3.4.1	8	3
Legacy AR	3.4.2	11	6

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1

Regular GO proposals include Calibration GO programs (Section 3.2.3), Joint HST-Chandra (Section 3.5), Joint HST/XMM-Newton (Section 3.6) and Joint HST-NOAO proposals (Section 3.7).

2

Regular AR proposals include Calibration AR programs (Section 3.4.3).

In relation to these page limits, note the following:

•	Proposals that exceed the page limits will be penalized in the review process; pages beyond the specified limits will be removed and will not be available to reviewers.

•	The figures and tables must appear after the text of the Science Justification. There are no limits on the numbers of figures, tables and references in the PDF attachment. However, the total page limit must be obeyed.

•	The description of the past HST Usage and Current Commitments does not count against the page limits.

•	Your PDF attachment must be prepared with a font size of 12pt. Do not change the format of any of the templates provided by STScI.