The NOIRLab Survey Program: Suggestions for New Modes of Operation

In response to the Call for Letters of Intent earlier this year for new NOIRLab Survey Proposals, we received expressions of interest for far more telescope time than has traditionally been available. A number of individual proposals even asked for more than the total time available. Other proposals requested surveys operating in non-standard modes that would have been difficult for NOIRLab to support without external resources. Thus we are now soliciting ideas and interest from the observational community to revisit how NOIRLab operates its survey program and to determine if additional new operating modes are needed. We are interested in more fully understanding the community’s current interests in survey time, desires to expand the total time available to surveys, suggestions for novel modes of operation, ways to bring in external resources to support large programs, and other ideas for new ways to define surveys.

The present NOIRLab Survey Program was initiated by then-NOAO over 20 years ago in response to the research opportunities enabled by large format optical or IR cameras, with the realization that large-scale investigations were poorly matched to the standard semester-by-semester repeated requests for time. The NOAO Survey Program offered large blocks of time awarded over a span of up to 3 years. In return, the selected survey teams were required to deliver high-quality data products that would enable follow-on archival research by the community. Presently, survey time is available on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, using the large format Dark Energy Camera (DECam) and NEWFIRM instruments, as well as on all instruments on the SOAR Telescope, for up to 20% of the total observing time available on each telescope. 

We welcome your input. Please add your ideas and thoughts in the form here. Your comments will be most useful and fully considered if received by 31 January 2024, but you can continue sending comments even after this date. Based on the level of interest expressed, we may host a brief virtual workshop that would allow for interactive presentations and discussions of potential new survey capabilities.