Fill out Proposal Information

After opening APT, select New JWST Proposal under the New Document pull-down menu. On the Proposal Information page, enter Title, Abstract, and Category of proposal and keep Cycle number at its default value.

Enter proposed Targets

See also: APT Targets, APT Target Confirmation Charts

Target information is entered by selecting Targets in the tree editor, which provides options in the active GUI window.  If a target has significant proper motion (> 10 mas /yr), STScI recommends fetching the coordinates and proper motion from the Gaia DR2 archive and inputting this information manually into APT. Note that the coordinate epoch from Gaia is 2015.5, so this needs to be added into the Epoch box.

Choose the New Fixed Target button so that you can add the Gaia coordinates (J2000 CoordinatesRA = 23 07 28.8327; Dec = +21 08 2.53) and proper motion (Proper Motion RA = 108.30 mas/yr; Dec = -49.48 mas/yr). Update the Category to Star and insert Exoplanet System and F stars into the Description box.

Create a New Fixed Target for the PSF reference star (HD 218172) and enter the Gaia coordinates (J2000 Coordinates RA = 23 05 35.3371; Dec = +20 14 27.69) and proper motion (Proper Motion RA = 7.81 mas/yr; Dec = 20.86 mas/yr). Update Category to Calibration and add Point spread function to Description.

Note that by clicking on Target Confirmation in the top tool bar, you can create target confirmation charts to verify that the target coordinates are correct and the telescope will be positioned in the expected place. The observations can be visualized onto various sky location using the Aladin visualization tool.

Observations

See also: APT Observations

Selecting Observations in the tree editor, click on the New Observation Folder, and in the Label field, enter Exoplanets in HD 218396 with NIRISS AMI.

Create observation for source (HD-218396)

Click Observation 1 in the tree editor to open the observation template in the active GUI window. In the Instrument pull-down menu, select NIRISS, and then select the NIRISS Aperture Masking Interferometry template in the Template pull-down menu. Note that only parameters of interest to NIRISS AMI are shown in the GUI.  In the Target pull-down menu, select HD-218396 which was defined above. Add HD-218396 into the Label field.

Create observation for PSF reference star (HD-218172)

Return to the observation template and click Add to create an observation template for the PSF reference star. Similar to the steps above, select NIRISS from the Instrument pull-down menu and select the NIRISS Aperture Masking Interferometry template. In the Target pull-down menu, select HD-218172. Add HD-218172 into the Label field.

Complete APT observation template for NIRISS AMI

See also: NIRISS AMI Template APT Guide, APT Target Acquisition

Fill out APT template for PSF reference star (HD-218172)

Target acquisition

For this science program, a TA is performed on the target, so in the NIRISS AMI APT Observation Template, keep the acquisition target in the Target ACQ pull-down menu at its default value of SAME TARGET AS OBSERVATION. Using the results from the ETC calculations, select AMIBRIGHT for Acq Mode, NISRAPID for Acq Readout Pattern, and 5 Acq Groups/Int. For your own tracking purposes, it is recommended you include the ETC workbook and calculation ID number in the Acq ETC Wkbk Calc ID field so the TA SNR calculations can be verified by instrument scientists during technical reviews after the proposal is accepted. In this example, the ETC workbook ID number was not included in the provided APT file since a unique ID number is generated when an example workbook is added to a user's list of workbooks.

AMI Parameters

Select NONE for both Primary Dithers and 5 for Subpixel Positions, and select the SUB80 Subarray. Select the F480M Filter and update Groups/Int to 14 and Integrations/Exp to 1272, based on the ETC calculations; the only available Readout Pattern is NISRAPID since you had chosen a subarray. 

Select False for Direct Image since you are not taking a direct image with this program. In the PSF Reference Observations box, click the check box next to This is a PSF Reference Observation.

Fill out APT template for source (HD-218396)

Target acquisition

Similar to the PSF reference star, perform target acquisition on the source; choose SAME TARGET AS OBSERVATION in the Target ACQ pull-down menu. Select AMIBRIGHT for Acq Mode, NISRAPID for Acq Readout Pattern, and 3 Acq Groups/Int, based on results from the ETC calculation.

AMI parameters

Select NONE for both Primary Dithers and 5 for Subpixel Positions, and select the SUB80 Subarray. Select the F480M Filter. Select the F480M Filter and update Groups/Int to 8 and Integrations/Exp to 1318, based on the ETC calculations; the only available Readout Pattern is NISRAPID since you had chosen a subarray. 

Selected False for Direct Image. In the PSF Reference Observations box, select the check box next to HD-217783 to associate the target with the PSF reference star so that the JWST pipeline will calibrate HD-218396 with HD-218172.

Define special requirements

See also: APT Special Requirements

Run Visit Planner

See also: APT Visit Planner

The APT Visit Planner checks the schedulability of an observation and whether guide stars can be found to support the observation. To check the schedulability of these linked observations, make sure one of the observations was selected in the tree editor, click on the Visit Planner icon in the top tool bar, and then click on Update Display in the active GUI. The Visit Planner returns with a confirmation that the set of observations is schedulable (green check next to both observations).

Run Smart Accounting

See also: APT Smart Accounting

To minimize excessive overheads, run Smart Accounting from the Visit Planner page by selecting the Run Smart Accounting option. The charged time for the observing program, including exposure time and overheads, is now accurately calculated.