The XMM-Newton Interface for Remote Proposal Submission (XIPS) System provides the facility for filling-in and submitting the XMM-Newton Observation Proposal Form (Phase I proposal submission).
The XIPS System requires login. This is done through the ESA-Cosmos credentials, the same used to access the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA).
If you do not have an ESA-Cosmos account, you can register
at https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xsa/self-registration.
A separate observation has to be entered for every target. Zero exposure time can be entered for some of the targets, so that the total requested time reflects the observing strategy (e.g. if only one of the candidates will be observed, only one of the observations must have non-zero exposure time).
Proposers wishing to cover an area of the sky with exposure times
per pointing shorter than 5 ks, may consider the use of the
The PI must enter:
In the case of
The observation has to be defined as Time Critical and fixed in "UT Time".
The
The PI must enter:
The observation has to be defined as Time Critical and fixed in "Position Angle".
Large areas of the sky can be observed by XMM-Newton through observations of eleven or more nearby or overlapping fields. Depending on the amount of total observing time, the PI may send the proposal as a "Large Programme" (see the XMM-Newton AO Policies and Procedures Document).
Users are asked to describe the proposed area of the sky in detail within the scientific justification. They must enter:
The exposure time of one individual pointing must be between 5 and 110 ks.
The number of pointings per proposal is limited to 999. The details of each observation (coordinates, instrumental setup, etc) will be defined later, within the Phase II proposal submission.
The observation has to be defined as "Time Critical"
and fixed in "Large Area".
The "User Profile" Panel (Icon at the top left) holds the user's personal information.
Prime Investigator information for new proposals is taken from the User Profile.
Fields in grey are taken from the ESA-Cosmos account, and can only be changed through it,
at https://www.cosmos.esa.int/.
The following buttons are available at the top of the page:
verify | Checks the validity of entered information. Required for proposal submission. |
save | Saves in the server the entered information. The first time a proposal is
saved, it is assigned a negative number, that will appear in the list
of user's saved proposals.
The proposal does not need to be verified. Only a limited number of fields in the Proposal Details and Prime Investigators sections are required. Save your proposal regularly while you are working on it. Information not saved will be lost when logging out. |
| | Generates the PDF version of the proposal. |
submit | Submits the proposal. Only appears when the current proposal has been
successfully verified.
Upon sucesfull submission, a message appears with the number assigned to the proposal, and an acknowledgement e-mail is sent to the PI and the CoIs. To make changes in a submitted proposal, copy it from the user´s proposal list, modify it, and re-submit. Do not forget to upload the scientific justification as well. Please send an e-mail to xmmpi@cosmos.esa.int with the number of the proposal to be discarded. |
upload | Opens the list of the users's submitted proposals and allows to upload the
scientific justification.
The scientific justification can be uploaded only after the proposal form has been submitted. Upon succesfull upload, an acknowledgement e-mail is sent to the PI and the CoIs. If you want to send a new scientific justification you do not need to re-submit the proposal. Just upload a new file. |
help | Opens this page. |
Opens an empty "Proposal Details Page".
Lists the user´s proposal available in the database, both those
already submitted, or (with a negative number) the ones that have
been saved but not yet submitted.
Clicking on a proposal allows to see details such as the time of the
last modification.
Proposals submitted in the current AO can be copied. The scientific
justification can be uploaded using the right side button.
Proposals not yet submitted can be edited or deleted.
Proposals submitted in the previous AO can be recovered from this list making a copy.
Opens the "Proposal Details" Page, with the general Proposal
information.
Fields marked with (*) are mandatory.
Proposal categories matching the composition of the XMM-Newton Observatory Time Allocation Committee panels. Users must select the category under which their proposals will be reviewed.
Title of the proposal. Up to 80 characters.
Type of the proposal. For details see the XMM-Newton AO Policies and Procedures Document.
This box is only applicable when the Proposal Type is "Target of
Opportunity". In this case, it is mandatory to fill it.
For details see
the XMM-Newton AO Policies and Procedures
Document.
The maximum allowed length is 15 lines with 80 ASCII characters per
line. Longer texts will be truncated and the excess text will not
propagate into the system. The content of this field will be made public
for accepted proposals.
Set this flag to "Y" if the proposal is submitted as a "Large Programme" (see the XMM-Newton AO Policies and Procedures Document). Only allowed for proposals requesting at least 300 ks. The only exception to this limit is the case of re-submission of a Large Programme approved in previous AOs, requesting additional time because of enhanced background during already done observations.
Set this flag to "Y" if the proposal requests multiple Optical Monitor (OM) filter wheel rotations within a single observation. Due to design limitations of the OM filter wheel, the number of observations allowed to be performed with multiple rotations is restricted to only those that are considered scientifically justified by OTAC. Therefore, in order to ask for multiple OM filter wheel rotations, PIs have to select YES (mandatory) and justify the scientific aims in the scientific justification of the proposal. In your argumentation, please be aware of the special set up and technical limitations that apply (see the XMM-Newton Users Handbook, section 3.5.9.5).
Abstracts must have a maximum of 10 lines with 80 ASCII
characters per line. Longer abstracts will be truncated and the
excess text will not propagate into the system.
Abstracts of accepted proposals will be made public.
Set this flag to "Y" if the proposal was already accepted in previous AOs, but the scientific objectives could not be fulfilled because the observations were affected by high background radiation.
Enter the number of the proposal that could not be fulfilled because the
observations were affected by high background radiation.
Required if this proposal is a re-submission.
Opens the "Prime Investigator Page".
This section contains personal details of the Prime Investigator(s). It is
initially filled with the information stored in the User Profile.
All fields, except the e-mail address, can be edited. Changes in the e-mail address have
to be done through the ESA-Cosmos account.
Fields marked with (*) are mandatory.
"Large Programmes" can have up to FOUR Prime Investigators.
| Title (*) | Select from the list |
| First Name (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| Last Name (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| Gender (*) | Select from the list |
| Institute (*) | Select from the list, or
enter manually; up to 100 characters. The "Filter by selected Country" option allows to display in the drop-down menu only Institutes of the P.I. country. |
| PhD year (*) | Select from the list |
| Mail Address Line 1 (*) | Up to 50 characters |
| Mail Address Line 2 | Up to 50 characters |
| City/Town (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| State/County | Up to 30 characters |
| Zip/Postal Code (*) | Up to 20 characters |
| Country (*) | Select from the list |
| Telephone Number (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| Institutional e-mail address (*) This field can be changed ONLY through the ESA-Cosmos account |
Please note that this e-mail address will be used to check for conflicts of interest between OTAC members and proposal investigators. Overlooked conflicts of interest may be of disadvantage for the proposal. The use of the institutional email is requested to avoid such problems. An email receipt will be sent to this address within 24 hours of the electronic submission of your proposal. The receipt will also include the PDF version of the proposal submitted. Up to 100 characters |
Opens the "Co-Investigators" Page.
This section is for details of any collaborators. Up to 20
Co-Investigators are allowed. If needed, more Co-Investigators can
be added during Phase II.
Click on
Fields marked with (*) are mandatory.
| First Name (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| Last Name (*) | Up to 30 characters |
| Institute (*) | Select from the list, or
enter manually; up to 100 characters |
| Country (*) | Select from the list |
| Institutional e-mail address (*) |
Please note that this e-mail address will be used to check for conflicts of interest between OTAC members and proposal investigators. Overlooked conflicts of interest may be of disadvantage for the proposal. The use of the institutional email is requested to avoid such problems. An email receipt will be sent to this address within 24 hours of the electronic submission of your proposal. The receipt will also include the PDF version of the proposal submitted. Up to 100 characters |
Lists the observations in the proposal.
Click on
Click on
Observations can be filtered udsing the box at the top of the list.
The total number of pointings in a proposal is limited to
999.
If more observations are required, they must be included in additional
proposals. In this case, please attach the same Scientific
Justification to all the proposals and, after submission, inform the
XMM-Newton SOC about the
numbers of the proposals to be concatenated.
Observations in the list can be copied, deleted or moved via "drag-and-drop".
To copy an existing observation, click on "Copy". A window will open with two options:
M 1, 83.63308, 22.01450, 30As many observations as lines in the file will be created, with the parameters provided and the Prime Instrument and Mode of the original observation.
This section is used to enter the details of each observation. Fields marked with (*) are mandatory.
The name for the object to be observed. Up to 30 characters. Please try to use names complying with IAU recommendations. The target name can be resolved with the SIMBAD and NED buttons, and the coordinates are automatically added to the R.A. and Dec. fields.
Right Ascension of the source referred to equinox J2000. The standard format is HH MM SS.SS - hours, minutes, seconds, separated by spaces. Optionally, it may be entered as degrees (DDD.DDDDDD).
Declination of the source referred to equinox J2000. The standard format is #DD MM SS.SS - degrees, arcminutes, arcseconds, separated by spaces (# indicates an optional sign). Optionally, it may be entered as decimal degrees (#DD.DDDDDD).
Prime instrument for the Observation. Options are "EPIC" and "RGS".
Operating mode of the prime instrument.
See the
XMM-Newton Users Handbook for the list of modes offered. Note that
when EPIC is selected as prime instrument, the mode must correspond to
EPIC-pn.
If the Prime Instrument is EPIC and the mode is Timing or Modified Timing, select this flag to "Y" when the expected EPIC-pn countrate is above 400 cts/s. In this case 13 ks (corresponding to a 10 ks exposure in EPIC-pn Burst mode plus overhead) will be added automatically to the observation.
The requested exposure duration for the prime instrument in ks. For
"Guest Observer" proposals, it must be between 5 and 110 ks
(except for
In the case of observations of a
The exposure duration can be zero only in case of "Target of
Opportunity" proposals with a list of candidates. Zero exposure
time can be entered for some of the targets, so that the total requested
time reflects the observing strategy e.g. if only one target is going to
be observed, only one of the observations needs to have a non-zero
exposure time.
The total requested time must be greater than zero ks, i.e. at least one
of the observations must have a non-zero exposure time.
Total observation duration, including Prime Instrument overheads and number of repetitions. This field is filled automatically after "Verify" and cannot be edited.
In the case of
Logical value indicating whether the observation is constrained. This flag must be set to "Y" for the following types of observations:
Fulfil Programmes cannot have any time constraint.
Number of repetitions of the same observation (target, duration, setup). The total number of pointings will be 1+Number of Repetitions. The number of repetitions of an observation is limited to 998.
The total number of pointings in a proposal is limited to 999. If the proposal requires more pointings, they must be entered in additional proposals. In this case, please attach the same Scientific Justification to all the proposals and, after submission, inform the XMM-Newton SOC about the numbers of the proposals to be concatenated.
Indicates if the observation is to be coordinated with other facilities.
Fulfil Programmes cannot be coordinated.
Indicates the type of constraint for Fixed Observations. For special modes, select as follows:
| Type of observation | Fixed in ... |
| | Large Area |
| | UT Time |
| | UT Time |
| | Position Angle |
| | UT Time |
This field appears only when the Proposal Type is "Target of Opportunity". In this case it is mandatory to fill it.
Number between 0.1 and 1.0 indicating the probability of triggering the observation during the AO.
Flag indicating that there are remarks for this observation. Required if comments are entered in the "Remarks" box.
Any relevant comments regarding the observation (e.g. details of the time constraints). Please note that "Fixed Time/Time Constrained" observations have to be explicitly justified in the Scientific Justification. In addition, be aware that they might not be feasible because of scheduling/visibility constraints. Up to 200 characters are allowed. Required if the Remarks Flag is "Y".
Set this flag to "Y" if you request time from other Observatory. See the XMM-Newton AO Policies and Procedures Document for details.
Please note that if the proposal includes both Joint and non-Joint observations the form may end up with unexpected results, in particular when an observation is deleted. In any case, any problem will be flagged upon "Verify"
chandra time |
Requested Chandra time in ks. Between 1 and 600 ks. |
chandra comment |
Details about the requested Chandra observations, instrument modes and
scheduling constraints, if any.
Up to 200 characters. Required if Chandra time is requested. |
h.e.s.s. time |
Requested H.E.S.S. time in hours. Between 1 and 42 hours. |
h.e.s.s. comment |
Details about the requested H.E.S.S. observations.
Up to 200 characters. Required if H.E.S.S. time is requested. |
hst time |
Requested HST time in orbits. Between 1 and 30 orbits. |
hst comment |
Details about the requested HST observations, instrument modes and
scheduling constraints, if any.
Up to 200 characters. Required if HST time is requested. |
ixpe |
Requested IXPE time in ks. Between 1 and 500 ks. |
ixpe comment |
Details about the requested IXPE observations.
Up to 200 characters. Required if IXPE time is requested. |
jwst time |
Requested JWST time in hours. Between 1 and 40 hours. |
jwst comment |
Details about the requested JWST observations.
Up to 200 characters. Required if JWST time is requested. Proposals requesting JWST time must provide an Extended JWST Scientific and Technical Justification via the JWST ATP (see this link for details). |
magic time |
Requested MAGIC time in hours. Between 1 and 42 hours. |
magic comment |
Details about the requested MAGIC observations.
Up to 200 characters. Required if MAGIC time is requested. |
nrao time |
Requested NRAO time in hours. Between 0.5 and 105 hours.
The different NRAO instruments have different limits:
|
nrao comment |
Details about the requested NRAO observations.
This tool only checks that the requested time is between 0.5 and 105 hours. PIs must enter details for the facility they wish to use, specifying the requested time, and making sure it is within the limits listed above. Up to 200 characters. Required if NRAO time is requested. |
nustar time |
Requested NuSTAR time in ks. Between 20 ks and 1.5 Ms. |
nustar comment |
Details about the requested NuSTAR observations, instrument modes
and scheduling constraints, if any.
Up to 200 characters. Required if NuSTAR time is requested. |
swift time |
Requested SWIFT time in ks. Between 1 and 40 ks. |
swift comment |
Details about the requested SWIFT observations, instrument modes
and scheduling constraints, if any.
Up to 200 characters. Required if SWIFT time is requested. |
vlt time |
Requested VLT time in hours. Between 1 and 80 hours. |
vlt comment |
Details about the requested VLT observations, instrument modes and
scheduling constraints, if any.
It is mandatory to specify for each target
Up to 500 characters. Required if VLT time is requested. |
xrism time |
Requested XRISM time in ks. Between 1 and 200 ks . |
xrism comment |
Details about the requested XRISM observations.
Up to 200 characters. Required if XRISM time is requested. |