I'm curious about proposals and time allocation on AAVSOnet: to what extent is the system oversubscribed, what types of proposals have the best chance of getting time (type of object, year-long monitoring of miras vs. shorter runs with higher cadence), what happens with proposals that doesn't result in either an acceptance or feedback from the time allocation committee, what's the rejection rate of proposals etc.
Is there any background information or discussion about such things somewhere? I found a list of objects accepted for observation on AAVSOnet, but that list had not been updated since a couple of years.
The background to my question is, of course, that I am interested in getting some time for some of my projects and have only been lucky to get one proposal accepted, so far. Am I doing something wrong, or are the odds of getting time high? What are the characteristics of a good proposal?
I really think that AAVSOnet is a wonderful part of AAVSO, and would like to utilise it more than I've been able to. Instead of observing my projects on AAVSOnet, I'm observing with commercial telescopes - mostly iTelescope.org and Sierra Stars - but that can get kind of expensive in the long run ...
With kind regards,
/Gustav Holmberg, HGUA
AAVSOnet is pretty heavily subscribed, but not so much that new projects can't be added. In your case, it is just a problem with the TAC (me) not getting to your proposals - my apologies. However, in principle, here are a couple of guidelines:
1) Time series always are a problem, as they tie up an entire telescope, often for several nights. For example, trying to get the whole light curve of an eclipsing binary. If you want time series, you need to thoroughly justify the "expense". Is this some sort of unique object? Have you written papers or done modeling of similar objects in the past? How are you going to analyze the data and, especially, when?
2) K28 is more underutilized than some of the other 'scopes, so if you have something that can be done with Sloan griz filters, you will have better access.
3) the "realm of the galaxies" time in late winter/early spring is usually underutilized, as there are fewer variable stars away from the galactic plane. If you have objects in the 10hr-16hr RA and +20 or higher declination, we are always looking for such projects to fill in gaps.
Arne