Proposals are now closed
Thank you for submitting a proposal for the April 2025 Semester. Observing schedules will be released 1 March 2025
Submitting a proposal in OPAL
Before submitting a proposal you are strongly encouraged to read the ATNF Telescope Status page for the latest information on telescope availability and capability.
Generally proposals for the ATNF facilities should be submitted in OPAL, our online proposal system. The only exceptions to this are applications for Director’s Discretionary Time and Target of Opportunity time.
Once you have created an OPAL account and logged in using the links below you will be guided through the proposal submission process.
Merit access
The ATNF operates its radio telescopes as National Facilities, allocating time to astronomers around the world on scientific merit. Proposals for observing time are invited twice each year, with submission deadlines around mid-June and mid-December. Proposals are assessed by the ATNF Time Assignment Committee, and successful proposals are allocated time in the following Semester (six months) commencing either in April or October.
Proposal requirements
Briefly, OPAL proposals typically require three components:
- A cover sheet created with the in-built OPAL cover sheet editor including the proposal title, details of the proposers and a proposal summary
- An observations table created with the observations table editor, specifying details of the requested observation(s)
- A scientific justification in PDF format (<10 megabytes and not more than three pages in total). This is not required for projects that have pre-graded project status. We strongly encourage proposers to use the Overleaf LaTeX template available here to create the scientific justification PDF.
For further details refer to the OPAL Users Guide.