GeminiFocus 2013 Year in Review | Page 44

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