Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 Instrument Handbook for Cycle 12

1.8 Special Considerations for Cycle 12

---

Cycle 12 will be the first HST Cycle in which the creation and submission of HST Phase 1 and Phase 2 proposals will be done using the Astronomer's Proposal Tool (APT). APT is a new suite of powerful tools, including the (already available) Visual Target Tuner (see Section 7.8.1), Exposure Time Calculators for all HST instruments, and all Phase 2 proposal tools that are currently handled by the RPS2 software.

As the detailed functionality of some of the phase 2 proposal tools within APT is still under development when this handbook is issued, we cannot discuss their use here. Some of the examples and instructions in this handbook will therefore continue to use the syntax of the current RPS2 Phase 2 software. Once the APT phase 2 tools become available, detailed updates to the changes will be provided through the annual "Phase 2 Update" document.