GHOST Takes Shape
The Gemini High-resolution Opti-
cal SpecTrograph (GHOST) — the
joint project between Gemini, Aus-
tralian Astronomical Observatory
(AAO), National Research Council
Canada-Herzberg (NRC-H), and
the Australian National University
(ANU) — has made good progress
over the past few months. In May
we held a team meeting in Sydney,
Australia, with members from all
four institutions to plan the proj-
ect’s test phase and work through
other outstanding project issues.
Figure 7.
AAO is completing the
build phase of its work on
the GHOST Cassegrain
unit, including its integral
field unit (IFU).
Top: The IFU
subassembly enclosure
(blue) and mounting
frame (black) attached to
the Instrument Support
Structure (ISS) mounting
plate (silver).
Bottom: A detailed
image of the IFUs and
positioning arms.
OCTOCAM Project Formally
Begins
The OCTOCAM team continue to work to-
ward the project’s first major assessment
point, the Conceptual Design Review (CoDR).
The team, including members from the
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), the In-
stituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Frac-
tal, George Washington University (GWU),
and Gemini, met in Granada, Spain, on April
19th to formally kick off the project to bring
the next new facility instrument to Gemini.
GHOST begins verification and
testing over the next several
months. AAO is completing the
build phase of its work on the in-
strument’s Cassegrain unit (Figure
7) and science optical cable. The ANU has
completed 70% of the instrument control
software and is finishing the last lines of
code needed for the upcoming testing. The
GHOST data reduction software, also being
developed at ANU, is also progressing well. A month later, SwRI successfully led a vir-
tual informal Systems Requirements Review.
Its main aim was to review the top-level re-
quirements, the status of each needed trade
study, and how the current design complied
with the top-level requirements. Since the
review, the OCTOCAM team has been pro-
gressing the design, evolving the science
team, and writing project plans in prepara-
tion for the CoDR to be held in Hilo, Hawai’i,
on August 2-3.
The team will test over the next two to three
months to verify that requirements are met
prior to shipping the slit viewer and science
optical cable to Canada for integration with
the spectrograph, which the NRC-H is build-
ing. The Cassegrain unit will also be tested
prior to shipping with the prototype optical
cable to Chile for preliminary testing on the
telescope. All of this work is to ensure that
everything is working in preparation for the
arrival of the spectrograph later in 2018. — Stephen Goodsell
To date, the build team has submitted 74
design requirements verification reports to
Gemini, all of which were accepted.
— Catherine Blough
52
JULY 2017
GeminiFocus
GHOST’s Upcoming Test Phase
Planned
The Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTro-
graph (GHOST) project continues to move
forward during the project build phase. In
mid-May, representatives from all four orga-
nizations involved with GHOST met at the
Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO)
in North Ryde, Australia, to plan the up-
coming test phase of the project (Figure 8).
This was the first large-scale meeting of the
project members since the Critical Design
Review in early 2016, and was considered a
very productive week.
January 2018 / 2017 Year in Review