XMM-Newton-NEWS

XMM-Newton-NEWS #61, 28-Aug-2006

XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre at
ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre,
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XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity (AO-6)

Letter of invitation by the Director of the ESA Scientific Programme

Dear Colleague,

I am very pleased to invite you to respond to the sixth "Announcement of Opportunity" to submit proposals for observations to be performed with the XMM-Newton observatory.

XMM-Newton is the second cornerstone of ESA's Horizon 2000 Science Programme. It was launched by an Ariane 5 launcher on the 10th of December 1999 and offers astronomers a unique opportunity to perform high throughput non-dispersive spectroscopic imaging in the energy range from 0.2 keV to 12 keV (European Photon Imaging Camera; EPIC) and medium resolution dispersive spectroscopy (Reflection Grating Spectrometer; RGS) in the energy range from 0.4 keV to 2.2 keV. In addition it provides simultaneous optical/UV observations with a co-aligned telescope (Optical Monitor; OM).

This Announcement solicits proposals to be carried out in the period from May 2007 to May 2008. Proposers from all over the world are welcome to participate. All proposals will be subject to independent peer review by the XMM-Newton Observing Time Allocation Committee (OTAC). Potential proposers are expected to prepare and submit proposals in electronic form, by the deadline given below, using the XMM-Newton Remote Proposal Submission (RPS) software.

The documentation for this Announcement is available via the internet at:
http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_science/AO6/

The appendix to this announcement lists the relevant documents and explains in detail how to access them. I would appreciate it if you would distribute the attached information at your home institute.

The key milestones for this Announcement are:

Announcement of Opportunity	28 August 2006
Due date for Proposals	06 October 2006 (12:00 UT)
Final OTAC approved programme	late December 2006

I invite you to submit your proposals and wish you success in using the XMM-Newton observatory.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. D. Southwood
Director
ESA Scientific Programme

Appendix: List of documentation

This appendix outlines the content of each of the documents associated with X-ray Multi-mirror Mission's (XMM-Newton) Announcement of Opportunity.

XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity: This letter from the Director of ESA's Scientific Programme is the formal Announcement of Opportunity to apply for XMM-Newton observing time.

XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity - Policies and Procedures: This is the "administrative" document of the Announcement, providing all necessary information about the policies adopted and the procedures to be followed.

XMM-Newton Users' Handbook: This gives a description of the satellite and its instruments, followed by detailed information on how to observe with XMM-Newton. For each of the three scientific instruments on board XMM-Newton (EPIC, RGS and OM) detailed information sufficient to calculate the necessary observing times is provided.

The documents listed above can be read (and downloaded) through the World Wide Web on the XMM-Newton Public Server located at ESAC, at the URL:

http://xmm.esac.esa.int/

and can also be retrieved generally as postscript files from the XMM-Newton/ESAC ftp server. Proposers should use ftp to access "xmm.esac.esa.int", then, log in as "anonymous" and give their e-mail address as password. Type "cd pub/AO6" to go to the directory containing the relevant files. The desired files can then be copied by typing "get filename" after issuing the "binary" command.

Time line for Phase II proposal submission

After the cycle of proposal submission and selection, the observation details for successful proposals must be entered into the observatory system. This is done during "Phase II" proposal submission. Please find below for your information the anticipated time line for that eventual Phase II:

Start of phase II proposal submission	15 January 2007
Closure of phase II proposal submission	09 February 2007

Important changes for AO-6, relative to earlier Calls

PDF Scientific Justification

Scientific justifications must be submitted electronically via the Remote Proposal Submission System as a single file in Portable Document Format (PDF). (This is a departure from earlier Calls which assumed delivery in Postscript format.)

Large Area Surveys

Proposals asking for observations of large areas of the sky through more than 10 individual observations with their fields of view touching each other or even overlapping need to be submitted in a special way as described in section 5.4 of the Policies and Procedures document.

New Scientific Category

A new scientific category has been introduced: "Cosmology, Extragalactic Deep Fields and Area Surveys" (see section 7.3.1 of the Policies and Procedures document).

Yours sincerely,
XMM-Newton SOC