Large Programs at CFHT

We are currently executing the 2022B - 2024A Large Programs.

The very first large program at CFHT was the CFHTLS which was started mid-2003 and finished in 2009. More than 2300 hours over 5 years (an equivalent of 460 hours per year) have been devoted to the survey using MegaCam.

Since 2008, CFHT went to smaller and more numerous LPs. The investigators can use several instruments and their proposals can be spread over all semesters or concentrated on fewer (specified) semesters. Programs with more spread out time allocations are generally more robust to weather losses. Also, multi-agency proposals were greatly encouraged. The 2008-2012 round and the 2013-2016 round were based on this model.

With the 2017-2019 proposals, CFHT is executing larger programs over a period of three years. Three programs were granted time, the Canada-France Imaging Survey (CFIS), VESTIGE: A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ioniused Gas Emission and The CFHT Infrared Parallax Program: Mapping the Brown Dwarf-Exoplanet Connection. These programs will ensure that CFHT remains competitive in the near future and will also enhance the legacy value of our archival data.

The call for proposals for 2018B - 2022A period received 5 proposals that requested a total of 670 Nights. A total of 354.7 nights were allocated to two proposals. SIGNALS was allocated 54.7 nights on SITELLE and the SPIRou Legacy Survey was awarded 300 nights on SPIRou.

In November 2018, the SAC issued a completion policy for all Large Programs started in 2017A and onward. Starting with a Large Program's mid-term review , a LP completion review will be triggered if a LP has an expected program completion below 80%, and/or SAC considers that the LP may not achieve the proposed science goals. If the review is favorable, the LP will be allocated time in future semesters in order to bring the program completion to at least 80%. Depending upon the available pool of future unallocated LP time (considering the maximum fraction for LPs set by the agencies), these allocations could be in semesters during and/or after the term.