The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) invites scientists to participate in the call for proposals of observing time at the three national radio telescopes:

- the 32-m Medicina antenna
- the 32-m Noto antenna 
- the 64-m Sardinia Radio Telescope

Two observing semesters are scheduled every year: 1st January to 30th June, 1st July to 31st December.
Deadlines fall in early October and early April, respectively.

Below we report the time INAF plans to award for the next semester 2023B:

•  Medicina: 2500 hours (1)
•  Noto: 2000 hours
  
•  SRT: 0 hours (2)
  

These amounts might be subject to modification, due to maintenance needs and to the variability of the commitments resulting from international agreements.

(1) MEDICINA ACTIVE SURFACE INSTALLATION
At some point during semester 2023B, the Medicina dish might be stopped in order to start the installation of the active surface on its primary mirror. The exact timing is not known at the moment. 

(2) SRT UNAVAILABLE DUE TO MAJOR UPGRADE
SRT cannot be offered during semester 2023B due to the planned upgrade at higher frequencies (see https://sites.google.com/a/inaf.it/pon-srt/home).

Please note -  We inform that single-dish observations with Noto can now be carried out remotely, as it happens for Medicina, although with different procedures.
Details will be provided in due time by the user support.

Acknowledgements - Papers including data/results obtained with the Italian radio telescopes must contain the appropriate acknowledgements, i.e.:
For the Sardinia Radio Telescope: "The Sardinia Radio Telescope is funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), Italian Space Agency (ASI), and the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (RAS) and is operated as National Facility by the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF)."
For Medicina and/or Noto: "The Medicina[Noto] radio telescope is funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MIUR) and is operated as National Facility by the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF)."

  Operational activities at the Italian radio telescopes are partly supported by ORP (http://www.orp-h2020.eu). The ORP project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101004719.

Time Allocation Committee

Proposals will be reviewed and ranked on the basis of their scientific merit by a Time Allocation Committee (TAC) of experts.

How to apply

Here is a list of useful indications and resources for those wanting to apply for observing time:

• Consult the announcement page - taking note of the proposal deadlines - and carefully read the general guidelines
  

• Refer to the offered programs to decide which type best suits the project you have in mind
  

• Visit the observational status summary of the three radio telescopes to determine the technical feasibility of your program, which instruments are available or appropriate, and estimate how much time is required to complete the observations
  

• Download and fill out the proposal form
  

• Submit the pdf file of the proposal form using the online submission interface
  

For inquiries and updates please contact us by writing to radioproposal at inaf.it

General guidelines

The three antennas shall be seen as a single coordinated facility so that users can submit a single proposal to request time at one or more than one telescope.
Please consult the following general guidelines:

1. Observing with our telescopes
2. Which antenna to use?
3. Italian VLBI
   
4. Recovery of lost observing time
5. MoU and LoIs policy
6. EATING VLBI
   
7. Proprietary time
8. Disclosure of proposal information
   

Offered programs

The offered observing programs types are:

1. Guest projects
2. Large projects
3. Long (multi-term) projects
4. NAPA proposals
5. ToO projects

All of these programs are TAC-evaluated and must be submitted using the official proposal form. Except for ToOs, which can be submitted at any time, all other proposals must be submitted at the regular deadlines. ToO evaluation and observations will be carried out quickly if the requested telescope is available.

Users can exceptionally apply for DDT (Director Discretionary Time) outside the regular calls. This is time at the disposal of the Directors of the institute(s) hosting the telescope(s).

INAF may also promote Legacy programs. These are very large projects that address broad scientific goals that are of interest to the scientific community at large.

Observational Status Summary

We strongly recommend the observers read the detailed information about the observational status of the three radio telescopes provided via the following page, which also links to useful tools (Exposure Time Calculator, source visibilty tool, etc.):

• Detailed information and tools for the observers

Here is a summary of the available receivers and back-ends:

• Summary of the offered devices
  

Copyright INAF 2020