Figure 13.
A small section of
the IGRINS first-light
spectrum. Purple -
IGRINS spectrum of
TW Hya from Gemini
South. A small part of
the K band in both cases.
Green - combination
of multiple epochs of
spectra on the same
object from McDonald
Observatory
[Figure from Sokal et al.,
2018]
Figure 14.
IGRINS first-block (April)
observing statistics.
but it produced a spectrum that rivals the
hard-earned published one from McDon-
ald Observatory (Figure 13). With such
remarkable first impressions, the IGRINS
team is extremely excited to be sharing the
IGRINS+Gemini combination with Gemini’s
broad astronomical community, and as its
2018 observing blocks at Gemini South
draw to a close, we all look forward to the
exciting results to come.
IGRINS was scheduled for three separate
observing blocks in Semester 2018A. As
this issued goes to e-press IGRINS’ time at
Gemini South is complete for now. In the
first block, apart from worse than usual
weather and one significant fault due to a
compressor failure (Figure 14), we’ve spent
almost the entire time observing IGRINS
programs with one or two observations
done in the regular queue. Hopefully the
weather will hold up through the second
and third blocks, but it’s already apparent
that IGRINS is a very powerful (as well as
popular) visitor instrument to Gemini.
Daniel Jaffe of UT Austin is the IGRINS Prin-
cipal Investigator (PI). Chan Park of KASI is
deputy PI and KASI instrument PI. Jae-Joon
Lee at KASI supervises the IGRINS operation-
al program on the Korean side. The IGRINS
visit to Gemini is supported by the U.S.
National Science Foundation under grant
AST-1702267 (PI - Gregory Mace, University
of Texas at Austin), and by the Korean GMT
Project of KASI. Further technical details are
available in Yuk, et al. (2010) (view here), and
Mace, et al. (2016) (view here). IGRINS sci-
ence support at Gemini is provided by Hwi-
hyun Kim.
Volcano Watch Activity at
Gemini North
Hawai‘i Island has suffered a long series
of major earthquakes and lava eruptions
in the “East Rift” zone of the Kilauea volca-
no, and a large number of smaller quakes
and ash emissions from the summit crater,
Halema‘uma‘u. While all of this action is a
60-mile drive or more from Maunakea, it
64
GeminiFocus
January 2019 / 2018 Year in Review