2
ultra-high-resolution speckle imaging with
visiting ‘Alopeke at Gemini North traced the
orbit of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet in a close
binary star system and conclusively dem-
onstrated, for the first time, which star the
planet orbits (Steve B. Howell et al., 2019);
and over the past few months, Gemini North
and South have joined the chase of our first
known interstellar comet, 2I/Borisov (Guzik
et al., 2019). Texas at Austin) will use the GNIRS to search
for and characterize the expected reversal
of the 20-year long-term downtrend of the
temperature of Uranus’ thermosphere. Let-
ters of Intent for the 2020 LLPs are due Febru-
ary 4th; these include new opportunities to
use the multi-object spectroscopy mode on
FLAMINGOS-2 and to apply for Subaru Inten-
sive Programs as an extension of our Subaru
Telescope time exchange program.
Gemini Observatory had its most scientifi-
cally productive year ever in 2019! We closed
out the year with a record number of Gemini
publications — over 250, a sharp increase
from the previous year. Some of this rise in
publications can be attributed to the increas-
ingly popular and productive Fast-Turn-
around proposal program, with over 10% of
2019 publications and an average oversub-
scription rate of ~ 2.2. We have also seen in-
creasing demand for Gemini’s Director’s Dis-
cretionary Time, accounting for an average
of 12% of the refereed papers over the past
several years, compared to a nominal 5% of
the allocated time. Gemini Observatory’s staff and collaborators
have also achieved significant milestones in
development, operations, and user support
over the past year that we expect to pave the
way for Gemini’s science in the next decade.
We released the first phase of DRAGONS
(Data Reduction for Astronomy from Gemini
Observatory North and South) to support
all of the Gemini facility instrument’s imag-
ing modes with a modern, Python-based
software package. The Gemini South MCAO
GeMS upgraded natural guide star sensor is
performing well, and will enable more effi-
cient observations over three times the pre-
vious available sky area.
The Large and Long Program (LLP), started in
2014 to support more ambitious and longer-
term projects, also had a banner year, with
the largest number of LLP publications. This
year we started three new LLPs: ZF2K: The First
Exploration of the K-Band Window and a Com-
plete Census of Massive Galaxies at 4 < z < 6,
led by Casey Papovich at Texas A&M Universi-
ty, will obtain medium-band K imaging over
0.5 square degrees to detect 4 < z < 6 and
higher-redshift emission-line objects; Obser-
vational Characterization of Recurrently Active
Main-Belt Comets and Near-Earth Main-Belt
Comet Candidates, led by Henry Hsieh (Plan-
etary Science Institute), will characterize the
activity and nuclei of a number of known
main-belt comets (MBCs) and near-Earth
MBC (NEMBC) candidates; and Monitoring
Seasonal Reversal in Uranus' Upper Atmo-
sphere, led by Laurence Trafton (University of A number of ongoing facility and visiting in-
strument development projects made signif-
icant progress: the Gemini High-resolution
Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) is undergo-
ing final testing at National Research Coun-
cil Canada’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astro-
physics before shipping to Gemini South; the
new visiting high-resolution spectrograph
MAROON-X (Principal Investigator (PI) Jacob
Bean) is in commissioning at Gemini North;
SCORPIO, the facility 8-channel imager/
spectrograph, passed its Critical Design Re-
view; and a state-of-the-art MCAO system
at Gemini North, integral field unit upgrades
for GNIRS, and the visiting Gemini InfraRed
Multi-Object Spectrograph (PI Suresh Siva-
nandam), all held successful Conceptual
Design Reviews. Finally, the GPI instrument
team has secured independent funding from
Heising-Simons Foundation (PI Quinn Ko-
GeminiFocus
January 2020 / 2019 Year in Review