OPENING OF THE OPTICON ACCESS PROGRAM The proposal submitted to the EU by OPTICON for support under the sixth framework programme (FP6) has been positively evaluated and contract negotiations are now underway. The wide-ranging OPTICON programme includes a transnational access activity for a range of European operated telescopes. The scheme is similar to the previous FP5 programme operated by the IAC for access to telescopes in the Canary Islands, but the new programme encompases a much larger suite of facilities at a wider range of locations. The OPTICON trans-national access activity can support travel costs for qualifying observing runs on telescopes which are awarded to EU or accession country astronomers NOT belonging to the country(s) which own the facility. About 200 observing periods (nights or days) per year can be supported in this way. Although the formal contract with the EU has not yet been signed, the contract is expected to start early next year. In view of the long time interval between submission of a proposal and actual observing, the OPTICON board encourages the submission of proposals for the usual Autumn 2003 deadline which applies to most of the telescopes. Note that proposals will be judged on scientific merit only by the Time Allocation Committees which already exist for each telescope involved in this programme. There is no special OPTICON TAC. The usual deadlines and application proceedures for each telescope apply and can usually be downloaded from their web-pages. The various rules, conditions, and telescopes participating will be listed soon on the Opticon Web page (http://www.astro-opticon.org/) and will be relayed by the EAS (http://www.iap.fr/eas/). In view of the time pressure, an outline of the essential points are given below, but these cannot be considered binding at this stage as the EU contract has not been signed. To be eligible for funding, a proposal must be submitted by a group of astronomers where the PI and at least half of the investigators do not belong to the nation(s) which operate the telescopes. The proposers must be from EU countries or associated and accession countries. Proposals from central European astronomers who are not traditional users of these facilities are strongly encouraged, but the programme can support any use of non-national telescopes across the EU astronomy community. Telescopes open to this programme include, under others: Deadline: Night-time facilities: The Anglo-Australian Telescope and UK Schmidt (UK time) Sep 15-March 15 The CAHA 3.5m and 2.2m at Calar Alto Sep 15-March 15 CFHT (French time only) in Hawaii Oct 1- March 15 ESO-LaSilla 3.6m, NTT and 2.2m telescopes Oct 1- April 1 WHT 4.2m and 2.5m INT in La Palma Sept 15-March 15 UKIRT in Hawaii Sept 30-March 15 Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in LaPalma Oct 14 Nordic Optical Telescope in LaPalma Nov 3- May 2 1.93m telescope in Haute-Provence Observatory Oct 15-April 15 2m Bernard Lyot telescope in Pic du Midi Oct 15-April 15 Solar Telescopes: Themis solar telescope in Teide observatory Jan 31 Swedish 1m solar telescope in La Palma German VTT solar telescope in the Teide observatory Jan 31 The Dutch Open telescope in La Palma The full list of participating facilities and deadlines can be found on the Opticon Web page and at each observatorty. New facilities will also join the programme in later years (like the Liverpool telescope and the Aristarchos telescope). The number of nights/days offered to the programme by each facility will vary from very small to up to 20% of the available observing time. As a guideline the fraction of time likely to be available is smaller on the larger telescopes. The details of this announcement are not binding but it is intended to help potential users to react rapidly and apply if they are interested. Please ensure a large diffusion of this announcement. We will do our best to keep you informed of the latest news as soon as available. 18 September 2003 Prepared by Michel Dennefeld (on behalf of the Opticon board, with the kind help of the Opticon Project Scientist, John Davies.)