Please note that during Semester
09B MERLIN operations will continue at a reduced level as e-MERLIN is
commissioned. Observations will be on a 'best efforts' basis as all
MERLIN antennas may be not available during Semester 09B and
observations may have to be restricted to a sub-set of
telescopes. Only Director's Discretionary Time proposals are being
accepted. These can be submitted at any time and will assessed
promptly. These should normally concern very urgent observations
which cannot be deferred until e-MERLIN is operational.
Proposals for MERLIN+EVN and VLBI observations should be sent to the EVN PC. Deadlines for VLBI proposals are the 1st February, 1st June and 1st October each year.
Once completed, e-MERLIN will be a National Facility, openly available to all astronomers. Along with other UK telescopes, observing time is allocated by the Panel for Allocation of Telescope Time (PATT). Proposals are assessed by independent referees who report to members of the e-MERLIN Time Allocation Group (TAG), which usually meets in May and October. Feedback on the allocation of time is sent out to the principal investigators (PIs) by PATT shortly thereafter and a list of approved observing programmes will be published as part of e-MERLIN's world-wide-web pages.
Deadlines for submission of e-MERLIN proposals will normally be the 15th March and 15th September each year, starting date to be decided (see the e-MERLIN pages for progress information).
All proposals should be submitted via the MERLIN Web-based Proposal Submission Tool, NorthStar. This is now the recomended method for all MERLIN proposals.
All proposals to MERLIN should be made using the Web-based Proposal Submission Tool. Please refer to the MERLIN NorthStar pages for further details regarding registering your details and using NorthStar.
In very exceptional circumstances, users may still elect to submit proposals by using the old LaTeX forms. For further information on how to obtain and complete the MERLIN Application Form.
Please consult the following specific information when applying for KEY PROGRAMMES and TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY observations.
Please also consult the additional important information regarding scheduling and data reduction of MERLIN observations.
We also provide some details of travel and accomodation for astronomers planning to visit JBO for MERLIN data reduction and analysis.
MERLIN is one of the participating institutes in the RadioNet project from which transnational access within the EU to existing observing facilities is financially supported.
