AKARI Phase 3-I (Post-Helium) ESA Call for Proposals

This announcement dealt with observations to be performed in the 1st year of the AKARI post-Helium phase, in which imaging and spectroscopic capabilities are available in the 1.8 to 5.5 micron wavelength range.

Resulting from ESA's participation in the mission, 10% of the total observing opportunities in the non-survey parts of the mission are reserved for programmes from individuals and teams from institutes located in ESA member states.

Japanese and Korean astronomers consulted the parallel ISAS Call.

Deadline for submission

The deadline for proposals submission was 4 July, 2008, 9:00 UT.

Proposal submission

Proposals were submitted in electronic form using the AKARI Proposal Submission Tool.
 

Documentation

• Letter from ESA Director of Science
  • The formal invitation letter from the Director of the ESA Scientific Programme. [PDF; 33 KB]
• Announcement of Opportunity: Call for Observing Proposals for ESA Open Time
  • A document providing the necessary information about the policies adopted and the procedures to be followed. [PDF; 92 KB]

[New! 08/06/13] Document updated to clarify that the current call is for the first year of observations.

• AKARI Observer's Manual for Phase 3
  • A document which describes the mission, scientific instruments and observing modes, the instrument performance, including guidelines for the observation planning. [PDF; 0.9 MB]

[New! 08/06/13] Version 1.1 includes the Cookbook (worked examples) section in the Appendix. No changes in any other sections.

• AKARI Observer's factsheet
  • A synoptic 2-pages overview of the mission and instrument capabilities, sensitivities and observing modes (AOTs). [PDF: 700 KB]
• Sky visibility maps
  • Sky visibility maps for Phase 3 Open Time observations
• Description of Mission Program (MP) Observations
  • MP Abstracts [PDF; 0.9 MB]
  • Blocked Target List [csv ; 52 KB, txt : 53 KB]]

Support Tools/Links

• Target list Validity Check Tool
  • A web tool to check the format of a proposal target list.
• Target Visibility Tool
  • A web tool to check target visibility.
• Duplication Check Tool
  • A web tool to check duplication of a target list against nearby entries in the blocked target list.
• DARTS Observation Log
• iris_sky
  • An IDL tool developed at ISAS to browse IRAS and 2MASS images and overlay the AKARI Field-of-Views.

Proposal Submission Tool

• Proposal Submission Tool

Additional information

Please refer to the AKARI Observers Page for relevant information about the cold phase observations, the data archive and observing log, tools for data reduction and the associated documentation (Instrument Data User Manuals).

Background information

AKARI (formerly ASTRO-F), is the first Japanese satellite dedicated to infrared astronomy, from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Its main objective is to perform an all-sky survey with better spatial resolution and wider wavelength coverage than IRAS, mapping the entire sky in six infrared bands from 9 to 180 micron.

AKARI operated with a 68.5 cm-diameter telescope cooled down to 6K and observed in the wavelength range 2-180 µm from a sun-synchronous polar orbit at 700 km altitude. It was successfully launched at 21:28 (UT) on 21 February 2006 by an M-V rocket from the Uchinoura Space Center (USC), Japan. AKARI ran out of its on-board supply of cryogen, liquid Helium at 08:32:40 (UT) on August 26th, 2007, after successful operation and observations that began on May 8th, 2006, achieving the expected lifetime of 550 days. More than 94% of the sky was covered in survey mode.

AKARI also performed more than 5,000 pointed observations over the wavelength range 2-180 µm in 13 bands, providing comprehensive multi-wavelength photometric and spectroscopic coverage of a wide variety of astronomical sources.

This announcement dealt with observations to be performed in the AKARI warm phase, in which imaging and spectroscopic capabilities are available in the 1.8 to 5.5 micron wavelength range.

10% of the total observing time for pointed observations in this Phase will be dedicated to successful proposals from this Call. Proposals have been peer-reviewed by an ESA established Time Allocation Committee, and then merged with those resulting from the parallel Japanese Call. The result of this process has been announced to the proposers. Successful programmes from this Call are expected to be executed starting in October 2008 for a period of 12 months.

Helpdesk

For any questions about the ESA AKARI Open Time observations, please consult the ESA AKARI Helpdesk