VERA Common Use

Call for Proposal of VERA -2017A-

Observing proposals for the VERA are invited for the observing period from January 15th 2017 to July 15th 2017. Deadline for proposal submission is

November 1st, 2016, 08:00 UT.


Available Observing Mode

In this observing period, following observing modes are available. Please refer to the VERA status reports for more detail about each observing mode.

Dual-beam mode : available for K-band and Q-band
Frequency band : K-band, Q-band and C-band (C-band is tentatively opened)
Recording mode : OCTADISK (1024Mbps recorders)
Filtering mode [bandwidth of a channel, channels in beam-A and beam-B, (mode name)]

     128MHz 1+1 (VERA1), 128MHz 2+0 (VERA1S), 16 MHz 1+15 (VERA7), 16MHz 2+14 (VERA7Q), 
     16 MHz 8+8 (VERA10), 16 MHz 16+0 (VERA7C) and 32 MHz 8+0 (VERA4S)

Array : VERA (K, Q and C) or VERA+NRO45m/NICT34m (K) or VERA+NRO45m (Q)

      Both NRO45m and NICT34m have NO dual-beam mode. For the array with NRO45m and/or
      NICT34m, the recording rate of 2 Gbps is used in all stations with the risk-share.
      The data of NRO45m and NICT34m can not make correlation with the data of VERA which 
      observed in dual-beam mode.

Correlation

The Mizusawa software correlator at NAOJ will be used for correlation. The correlated data will be distributed to PI in the FITS format via internet download.

Source list of VERA catalog

A source list of VERA catalog is defined as the source list. Among the sources in the list, ~150 sources will be observed systematically in ~3 years as porject sources to measure trigonometric parallax and proper motions. These objects are not protected for the open use, and you can propose to observe any sources in this source list.

Preparation and Submission of Proposals

Proposals must be received by 08:00 UTC on November 1st, 2016. We only accept PDF file for proposal submission. Submission by regular/express mail or FAX is NOT acceptable.

Preparation for your proposal

(1) Cover-sheets

Download the Latex template of Cover-sheets (cover17A.tex) and the style file (VERAprop17A.sty). Fill in the blanks in English or Japanese as instructed in the comments of the template file and a note for the application cover sheets. If you specify paper size for printing, use only a size of A4. Run Latex and make a PDF file. In order to identify your file, please rename this PDF file as "PIname_# of your proposal_cov.pdf." For example, when the PI name is Mizusawa, H., file is named as "HMizu_1_cov.pdf".

(2) Scientific Justification
Prepare a file of the scientific justification within 2 pages in English or Japanese. One more additional page with diagrams may be included. The total, including cover-sheets, should NOT exceed 5 pages. You should NOT use the font size smaller than 10 point. Create a single PDF file (paper size of A4) incorporating your scientific justification and a diagram page. Please rename this PDF file as "PIname_# of your proposal_scj.pdf."

Submission of your proposals

When you submit your proposals, please label "PIname_# of your proposal" as the subject.
If you have any problem in the web submission, submit your PDF files (cover sheets and the scientific justification) as e-mail attachment files to
vera-submit @ nao.ac.jp
with subject as "PIname_# of your proposal."

After submission

You will receive a reply e-mail which confirms the contents of the submitted files within one or two working days. If you do NOT receive it, please contact to vera-prop @ nao.ac.jp.

Data Rights and Archiving

The authors named on a proposal will have exclusive access to the data obtained for that proposal for 18 months after the correlation. This policy is applied to each observation, even if the proposal comprises multi epoch observations. After this exclusive period, the data will be publicly accessible.

Note for the astrometric observations

Although the call for proposal invites proposals for the observing period during a half year, you can submit the astrometric observations which request multiepoch observations over a half year and till one year. Once these astrometric proposals are approved, it is not necessary to submit them again at the next call for proposal after a half year.

After the huge earthquake on 11 March 2011, the motion of Mizusawa station is still highly unstable and cannot be simply approximated by linear motion. Therefore, those who want to propose astrometric observations with VERA should note that astrometric performance this year could be degraded considerably due to inaccuracy of Mizusawa station's position.

Note for the correlation of C-band data

A software correlation is available for the C-band observation to achieve about 1 kHz fequency resolution, but the total output bandwidth is restricted because it increases the size of output data.
This high-resolution software correlation is restricted to C-band observation only.

Note for the combined array with the NRO 45-m and/or NICT 34-m telescopes

The observable period for the NRO 45-m telescope is usually from December to May every year. Also the NICT 34-m telescope could not join VERA from January to March and during the maintenance season, usually from August to October. The maintenance season will change every year.
Please see
http://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/~nro45mrt/html/prop/index-e.html
http://www2.nict.go.jp/aeri/sts/stmg/34m/plan/plan34m.html
for more information about each telescope.
NRO 45m is available in K- and Q-band observations and NICT 34m is only available in K-band observation. Whether these antennas are joined in the proposed observation or not is judged by Time Allocating Committee of VERA and NRO based on a scientific merit of observing proposal and availability of observing time.
NRO 45m and the NICT 34m have no C-band receiver.
In this period, a recording rate of the 2 Gbps is used with a shared-risk base in the VERA+NRO45m/NICT 34m array. The data of NRO45m and NICT34m can not make correlation with the data of VERA dual-beam mode.

ToO observations

An expected Target of Opportunity proposals should be submitted to regular CfP of VERA. Also, unexpected or urgent ToO can be submitted Director's time at any time. All ToO proposals must include specific triggering criteria to initiate an observation. The ToO is active one year from it is approved. The proposals to Director's time must be submitted by PDF files using e-mail to vera-submit @ nao.ac.jp.

Additional Information

The VERA status reports
A note for the application cover sheets
K bands Cumulative List of Observed Sources
Q bands Cumulative List of Observed Sources
C-band Cumulative List of Observed Sources
VERA Water Maser Survey Results
VERA 22 GHz Fringe Survey List (Petrov et al. 2006)
Reference sources detected with VERA (collected from various observations)
Sources that were NOT detected with VERA in the 22GHz Fringe Survey

proposal cover sheet, latex style file, sample for cover sheet

Contact e-mail address

If you have any question about the call for proposals of VERA, please contact with
vera-prop @ nao.ac.jp