The past few weeks have been fairly busy for me. I am starting to experience the seemingly never-ending cycle of proposing for telescope time. It started with the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope where proposals were due 15 January. After finishing that, internal requests were due for UVa telescopes. Coming up next is the deadline for NRAO telescopes, such as the Expanded Very Large Array. Fortunately, I don’t have to write any of the proposals from scratch, so that makes things a bit easier.
All of the requests are for data will be used for my PhD thesis, which will be investigating the gas and dynamics of merging pairs of (formerly) spiral galaxies as they transform into elliptical galaxies.
Writing proposals is interesting.. You have to succinctly (usually in 2-3 pages) describe the scientific merit of your project, complete with background and a technical justification showing it is feasible with the telescope. Often, the Time Allocation Committee (TAC) is composed of both experts and non-experts in your sub-field. So, you need to write a proposal which is scientifically accurate and compelling, but write it in such a way that someone on the TAC who is not an expert can still understand the project. It is sometimes a tough balance, especially when given just a few pages..
So, with two proposals down and one to go, I’d better get back to writing!
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