Kepler & K2
Proposals for targets to be observed by K2 in Campaigns 11, 12, and 13 are currently being solicited as part of K2 Guest Observer Cycle 4. Mandatory Step 1 submissions for these proposals are due on February 5, 2016, followed by a Step 2 deadline on March 4th, 2016.
Proposals must be accompanied by a target table (by the Step 2 deadline) which details the objects to be observed. To enable the community to select and propose the most interesting targets, the following resources are available:
- The Ecliptic Plane Input Catalog (EPIC) has been updated to include targets for Campaigns 11-13. The catalogs can be queried online or downloaded in text format from MAST.
- The K2fov package has been updated to include the details of fields 11-12-13, along with the preliminary positions of fields 14 through 17. Installing the package adds two executables to the command line, K2onSilicon and K2findCampaigns, which allow the visibility of targets to be checked during one or all campaigns. If you have a previous version of K2fov installed, it is crucial that you upgrade to version 3.0 or higher ("pip install K2fov --upgrade").
- A new package called K2ephem has been built on top of K2fov to allow the visibility of Solar System bodies, i.e. asteroids and comets, to be checked in a user-friendly way.
- The sky footprints of past and future campaigns have been made available as machine-readable text files. These files detail the coordinates of the CCD corners during each Campaign and allow users to create custom visualizations or run custom target selection algorithms. The footprints are also available in the MOC data format which can be opened and visualized using the Aladin interactive sky atlas.
Please contact the Guest Observer Office if you have questions.