Subaru Open-use Policy

Eligibility for each program

Eligibility for each program is described in each page:

If a person with both Japan and Time Exchange attributes, such as a Japanese national affiliated with a U.S. research institution, proposes to use the Subaru Telescope, he or she may choose which route to apply (however, duplicate applications from multiple routes are not allowed).

Allocation Policy

About 65% of total available nights excluding the downtime period will be assigned to open-use proposals. Maximum 5% of total nights will be allocated to international proposals (see *1). Non-Japanese researchers are encouraged to submit their proposals in collaboration with Japanese researchers.

Observing time will in principle be assigned in units of 1 (whole) night for Normal Programs, except for queue observations. But the Observatory may allocate half night observations according to the necessity of scheduling.

Queue mode is default observing mode for HSC and PFS, meanwhile the other instruments are used in classical mode except for service programs.

In principle, canceled observation time due to unexpected problem such as telescope/instrument failure or natural disaster will not be compensated.

*1 International proposals are defined as those submitted by non-Japanese principal investigators (PIs) belonging to non-Japanese institutions. However, according to the MoU, researchers belonging to Princeton University or Taiwan are exceptionally allowed to use Subaru up to 10% of the total nights. Proposals submitted by EACOA fellows and EAO fellows are considered as domestic proposals.

Dual Anonymous Review System

From S23B, Subaru SAC and TAC implement a dual anonymous (DA) system for the proposal review.

Under the DA system, proposals will be reviewed according to the policies below:

Coversheet items, where PIs or Co-Is are identifiable, will be hidden from reviewers.
Applicants should prepare their proposals in a manner compliant with the DA system.
Reviewers are requested to evaluate proposals solely based on their scientific merit.
After the review, TAC will evaluate the Team expertise, including applicants' identities, publication records, past observation results, relationship to thesis work, etc.

Please refer to the DA Guidelines (Japanese/English) for more details. Applicants are requested to follow the DA writing style described in How to Submit? page.

Members of the Time Allocation Committee (2023/08-2025/07)

Chair:	Makoto Uemura (Hiroshima University)
Members:	Fumi Egusa (University of Tokyo) Hironao Miyatake (Nagoya University) Keiichi Maeda (Kyoto University) Kohei Ichikawa (Tohoku University) Miho Ishigaki (NAOJ) Noriyuki Matsunaga (University of Tokyo) Ryou Ohsawa (NAOJ) Takayuki Muto (Kogakuin University) Teruyuki Hirano (ABC) Yoshiaki Ono (University of Tokyo)

Data Rights and Archiving

Observers of Subaru Telescope will have exclusive access to their data for a period of 18 months (548 days) from the time of observation, after which the data will be made open to the public in the Subaru archival database.

Applicants are required to check their targets in SMOKA database (Public Data Archive) before submission. If the objects have already been observed by Subaru in the past, the reason why they need to be observed again must be described.

The complete texts of the abstracts of all the accepted Subaru proposals will be open to the public after the time of the data release (i.e., when the proprietary period of 18 months has expired).

updated on February 4, 2025