tive is to progressively reduce the amount
of staff required to operate the system at
night. This will be achieved by deploying
more high-level software and diagnostic
tools. The first semester of regular science
operations was also intensively used for
cross-training within the various teams supporting GeMS/GSAOI.
Figure 5.
NGC 4038, one of the
Antennae Galaxies,
imaged by GeMS/
GSAOI during System
Verification.
gating the beams on the sky, will be optimized with better coatings and a control of
the light’s polarization.
A third performance upgrade is also in the
works for the next semester, and it concerns
the Natural Guide Star wave-front sensor.
Due to minor design and alignment issues,
the current limiting magnitude achievable is
around 15.5 in the visible. This dramatically
reduces the number of targets obtainable
outside of the Galactic plane. A completely
new design, based on a recently developed low noise focal plane array, has been
approved, and should be implemented in
GeMS before the end of 2014. This fix is expected to boost the sensitivity of the system,
allowing researchers to acquire stars as faint
as 18.5 in visible light, hence increasing the
portion of the sky accessible to GeMS.
On another front, there is also a large on-going effort to smooth the “operation ability”
of the GeMS system, and perform the transition into regular operations. The objec-
42
GeMS/GSAOI is now available through
the regular Call for Proposals process. The
2013A semester, offered as “shared-risk,” received 11 programs, for 80 hours allocated.
Semester 13B has been open for 150 available hours, which were recently allocated
with 16 programs, and plans currently allow for this level of GeMS availability for the
foreseeable semesters ahead. In the nearfuture, the goal will also be to diversify the
science capabilities, by offering GeMS for
FLAMINGOS-2 and possibly even the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (observing at
the red-end of the visible spectrum).
Impacting the Future of
Astronomy…
After about 10 years of development, and
almost 100 nights of commissioning, GeMS/
GSAOI is now producing unique science!
This accomplishment paves the way for future AO developments, and especially for
the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes, for which running multi-laser AO
systems will be the baseline.
Benoit Neichel is an adaptive optics scientist at
Gemini South. He can be reached at:
[email protected]
Rodrigo Carrasco is an astronomer at Gemini
South. He can be reached at:
rcarrasco@@gemini.edu
GeminiFocus 2013 Year in Review
January2014