weather loss on Maunakea is typically in the
range of 25-30 percent, the response corresponds to an oversubscription factor of
about three. The science areas covered by
the proposals were very diverse, as were
the reasons for asking for FT time. Some of
these include:
On Trial: Fast Turnaround
Peer Review
• obtaining data to complete a thesis or get
the last pieces of data needed to complete
a paper;
Would there be signs of bias and unfairness
in the system? Would the reviewers all submit on time? Would the reviewers choose
the ”right” proposals?
• compensating for an observing run lost to
poor weather at another telescope;
• conducting pilot observations or gathering information for upcoming standard
proposals;
• complementing multi-wavelength monitoring campaigns;
• and, finally, simply pursuing topics of interest to the submitting PI.
On the other hand, the proposals were
generally short (all but one asking for less
than about six hours). Roughly 75 percent
requested the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), and most came from the
mainland United States. This is not to say
that the other partners were not represented; Canada, Brazil, and UH also participated
in this first cycle.
The mix of proposals received for the second call, due at the end of February, was
somewhat different, with more emphasis
on infrared instrumentation. Slightly less
time (54 hours) was requested overall from
the 12 proposals submitted. We speculate
that the oversubscription of the FT program
will eventually self-regulate, with high values discouraging people from submitting
proposals (too much work for too small a
chance of success) and low values having
the opposite effect (”free” telescope time!). It
will also be interesting to see if the regular
(semester-based) proposal deadline at the
end of March has any effect on the number
of FT proposals received for that cycle.
18
GeminiFocus
The peer review process is the most novel,
high-profile, and little-tested, aspect of the
FT program, and we have been watching it
unfold with great anticipation.
Reviewe