Dear Colleague,

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) is currently searching for
gravitational waves from about half of the pulsars in our frequency band (spins
above 20Hz).  We have published two searches for smaller numbers of pulsars
[Phys Rev Lett 94, 181103 (2005) and Phys Rev D 76, 042001 (2007)] with Michael
Kramer and Andrew Lyne, whose contribution of up-to-date timing has been
essential to our efforts.

We would very much like your help in expanding our searches to cover all the
pulsars in our band - 160+ in the ATNF catalogue, plus some not yet in the
catalogue.  Ideally we would like phase-connected timing for the duration of
our data runs, which generally requires dish time since not all objects of
interest to us are part of regular radio observing programs.  For those which
are part of regular programs, it helps us to have timings in advance of
publication.  Our present (S5) run began in November 2005 and is scheduled to
end in October 2007 if the duty cycles of the instruments hold.  While we
appreciate this is short notice for end-of-run observations, we are glad to
write letters of support for you to obtain director's discretionary time, etc,
if you are willing to help.  Also, it is not too early to begin planning for
our S6 run, which will begin in early 2009 with about a factor of two
improvement in sensitivity and will end in late 2010.

If you have any interest or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Mike Landry, Marialessandra Papa, and Ben Owen,
for the continuous waves search group
of the LIGO and VIRGO Scientific Collaborations