Preparing an AAOmega proposal

Proposals to use AAOmega are accepted for either visitor mode or service mode observing. See Applying for time on the AAT for more information on the application process.

Before preparing an AAOmega proposal, interested astronomers should review "Part I: Overview of 2dF and AAOmega" of the 2dF-AAOmega Manual. That section provides all the necessary information to decide if AAOmega is suitable for a particular science case and to prepare an observing proposal. In addition to the printable manual, there are interactive tools available from the tabs on this page including a grating calculator and an Integration Time Calculator (ITC).

 
The AAOmega grating calculator provides information on expected wavelength coverage and resolution for a particular configuration of the spectrograph.
(mag/arcsec2)
Enter magnitude in selected filter

Notes on the exposure time calculator

Magnitudes are in the Johnson system. All grating efficiencies assume they are used at the most efficient angle for that band, except 580V and 385R which assume a blaze of 4800Å and 7250Å respectively.

Sky subtraction can be either with 20-30 dedicated sky fibres (~1% sky subtraction accuracy), or with ~200 targets in nod & shuffle beam-switching mode (~0.1% sky subtraction accuracy), or with ~100 targets using nod & shuffle cross beam-switching mode (~0.1% sky subtraction accuracy). Mini-shuffling doubles the number of targets in nod & shuffle modes, with ~0.3% sky subtraction accuracy.