10 June 2005

   INFRARED-OPTICAL TELESCOPE ARRAY (IOTA) OBSERVING PROPOSALS
                 September through December 2005
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Briefly:

1. Due date: noon (EDT) on Tuesday, July 12, 2005

2. To submit a proposal, please follow the proposal guidelines at

	http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/IOTA/Schedules/ .

3. Three telescopes are in routine operation in phase-closure mode. The
new (11/02) 3-beam integrated optics H-band combiner from Grenoble has
achieved H=7. The 3-beam free-space RIJHK combiner is still under
adjustment, and should not be counted on for the coming trimester.  If
you are considering the 2-beam asymmetric combiner, contact John Monnier
(monnier@umich.edu)  first.  The new star tracker from Lincoln Labs was
improved to give lower dark current and lower read noise, and will be
available.  The frame grabber is available for star acquisition and
alignment.  Two direct-view prisms for J and H have been tested, and
software is being developed now; these will give about 3 pixels of
dispersion across H-band for the small prism, and 7 pixels for the large
prism.  An automatic alignment system has been built and is already
available by manual control.

4. We formally shut down during much of September. But if you wish to do
some work during this time, in spite of the poor weather, we will try to
accomodate.

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Comments:

The IOTA consortium invites observing proposals for the IOTA
interferometer on Mt. Hopkins, AZ.

We welcome proposals from new or experienced IOTA observers. New
observers should work with experienced ones on-site each night. For
safety, no one should work alone at IOTA.

Recognizing that SAO has a major investment in IOTA, we ask that
scientific work with IOTA include SAO personnel as collaborators.

Our web site has been updated, a complete list of IOTA-related papers
added, and many papers made available on-line:

	http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/oir/IOTA/

Instructions for operations are on this site as well.

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People:

* Dr. Marc Lacasse has been the resident IOTA engineer/scientist in
Tucson since August 1995; Marc's first priority is to work towards
making IOTA a facility-type instrument; his second priority is to assist
observers.  His Tucson office is at Steward Observatory 520-670-5750,
his on-site phone is 520-670-6757, his beeper is 520-703-8976, and email
is mlacasse@cfa.harvard.edu.

* Dr. Peter Schuller joined the IOTA group in March 2003. He is
responsible for the star-tracker and other projects, including the web
site.  Peter is at pschuller@cfa.harvard.edu or 617-495-7491.

* Dr. Ettore Pedretti is a Michelson post-doc at the University of
Michigan, with Prof. John Monnier.  He continues to advise and observe
at IOTA.  He is at 734-647-9767 or epedrett@umich.edu

* Dr. Herve Le Coroller joined the IOTA group in January 2005.  He is
based at the California Association for Research in Astronomy (CARA) in
Kamuela, HI, working with Dr. Sam Ragland on the Mira Imaging Project.

* Dr. Sam Ragland is now an Interferometry Scientist at the Keck
Observatory.  As PI for The Mira Imaging Project he will be at IOTA
often.  He is at 808-881-3516 or sragland@keck.hawaii.edu .

* Dr. Pascal Borde received his PhD from Meudon in late 2003, and joined
us at the CfA as a Michelson post-doc in December 2003, working on TPF
coronagraph designs.  He is at 617-496-4773.

* Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger received her PhD from Karl-Franzens University in
Graz, Austria in 2004, and joined us at the CfA in January 2005, working
on TPF science.  She is at 617-495-7158.

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Questions? - Contact

Wes Traub <wesley.a.traub@jpl.nasa.gov>   , tel 818-393-5508  or
Peter Schuller <pschuller@cfa.harvard.edu> , tel 617-495-7491 .