Call for proposals including new instrument Harps-N at TNG and RoS2 at REM is now open for observing time for the period August 1st, 2012 - January 31st, 2013. The proposalsshould be submitted by Monday 16th Apr, 2012, 13:00 UT.

TNG is a 3.58m optical/infrared telescope located at Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory in the island of La Palma (Canary Island). Its primary mirror is corrected by Active Optics and it is equipped with 4 instruments which offer imaging and spectroscopy, spanning the optical and near infrared wavelengths range. Visit http://www.tng.iac.es

REM is a 60 cm robotic telescope located at La Silla ESO site (Chile) which can observe simultaneously with a visible and an infrared camera. The observations will be carried out in unmanned, queuing mode. Visit http://www.rem.inaf.it

HARPS-N AT TNG is a high resolution, high stability visual echelle spectrograph suited for radial velocity measurement with sub m/sec accuracy. The instrument, a copy of Harps @ 3.6m ESO Chile with some upgrades, is now in its final integration phase and will be offered to users in this semester for the first time. See our web pages for info on the instrument and its usage. Please take into account that all infos, specifically from ETC, are to be considered a good estimate but have necessarily not yet been checked against real performances. In addition, the Harps-N Consortium (see web pages) will carry out Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) which will have a list of protected targets, which cannot be proposed for observation by other users. The list of protected targets can be found at this page (http://www.tng.iac.es/instruments/harps/#gto).

FORCED SERVICE MODE AT TNG. Observing runs scheduled in visitors mode might be executed by our staff, in some cases. This occurrence, decided at the moment of schedule preparation, will be communicated immediately to the PI of the accepted proposal.

ROSS2 AT REM- During the month of August 2012 we will integrate and commission the new visible camera ROSS2, which will substitute ROSS. The new set of filter will be Sloan/SDSS g', r', i', z'. The new camera will be capable of obtaining the 4 images in the 4 different filters at the same time, using dichroics. See the REM web pages for more details in the Instrumentation section. A period of engineering time of no less that 2 weeks is foreseen at the beginning of August, when REM will not be operational. Application forms and detailed instructions can be downloaded from the TNG web pages (http://www.tng.iac.es/sumbit.html ). The INAF time allocation committee welcomes proposals from foreign researchers/institutes which, alike all other proposals, will be judged strictly on their scientific merit.