Much of the discussion at the STAC meeting
centered around the plan to advance the
adaptive optics facilities at Gemini Obser-
vatory by the mid-2020s. With the October
announcement of new NSF funding called
GEMMA (Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messen-
ger Astronomy), plans are now underway to
develop a state-of-the-art multi-conjugate
adaptive optics (AO) facility instrument at
Gemini North (GNAO) by 2024. In combina-
tion with the exquisite observing conditions
on Maunakea, GNAO will yield high-resolu-
tion imaging and spectroscopic capabilities
over a 2 arcminute field of view, allowing de-
tailed studies of galactic stars and star-form-
ing regions, high density stellar populations,
and transient events in distant galaxies.
The GEMMA award also allows us to update
the real-time controllers (RTC) — which ana-
lyze data from wavefront sensors and com-
mand the deformable mirrors that correct
the image for the Gemini Multi-conjugate
adaptive optics System. The same RTC de-
sign will be implemented into the GNAO
system (benefitting both telescopes).
Complementing the GEMMA award, the
STAC and Board endorsed a plan (targeted
for completion by 2026) to develop an adap-
tive optics secondary mirror for Gemini
North which will be fully compatible with
the new MCAO and RTC systems and future
Gemini North instruments. These develop-
ments allow us to push Gemini North AO on
a path toward an even larger corrected field
of view, higher correction performance, and
greater wavelength coverage; it also gives
us the future potential to provide Ground-
Layer AO (GLAO) and Single-Conjugate AO
(SCAO) for all instruments on the telescope.
Further Expansions and Results
Time-domain and multi-messenger astron-
omy are also exciting areas of development
and on-going science programs for Gemini.
2
GeminiFocus
We are looking forward to the next run at the
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Ob-
servatory (LIGO) during the first half of 2019.
Recent upgrades to LIGO will make it sensi-
tive to gravitational wave sources at greater
distances and in larger numbers than previ-
ous observations. We are also preparing for
rapid follow-up of electromagnetic counter-
parts with Gemini’s bi-hemisphere access
and flexible queue scheduling.
Thanks in part to the NSF’s GEMMA award,
we can now begin enhancing our software
infrastructure for the start of Large Syn-
optic Survey Telescope’s (LSST’s) science
operations in about 2022. These improve-
ments will benefit all users through greater
observing efficiency and improved data
reduction tools. In order to prepare for the
strong demand for time-domain follow-up
observations, while maintaining non-Target
of Opportunity (ToO) science productivity,
we plan to develop the software necessary
for an automated, dynamic queue system.
This system will also coordinate with a wider
network of follow-up facilities, and include
an improved spectroscopic data reduction
pipeline.
We continue making excellent progress on
the Gemini facility instrument SCORPIO,
an eight-channel optical/infrared imager
and spectrograph with simultaneous cov-
erage from 0.38-2.5 microns. SCORPIO will
serve as a workhorse instrument at Gemini
South for ToO and general observers alike
by about 2022. For more information, please
join me at the splinter session titled Science
with SCORPIO on Gemini at the Winter 2019
meeting of the American Astronomical Soci-
ety (AAS).
In the near term, Gemini’s science programs
are going “high-resolution” by pushing the
extremes of spatial and spectral resolution,
including two new Large and Long Pro-
grams: one, with Ian Crossfield (University
of California Santa Cruz) as Principal Inves-
January 2019 / 2018 Year in Review