The latter test took place late in the year, and
we are using the results to develop a more
economical process in 2013 and beyond.
Facility instrumentation produced a number of problem-solving opportunities during the past year. This is exemplified by the
second stage of GNIRS refurbishment which
was carried out between June and October.
This work resulted in significantly more robust mechanical performance and a much
reduced rate of alpha particle detections due
to the replacement of the thorium-coated
lenses in the short blue camera.
At Gemini South, T-ReCS presented staff
with many difficult mechanical challenges,
keeping it off the telescope for two months.
GMOS-S suffered the indignity of being
turned on its head in a successful effort to
replenish the oil layer between lenses in
the camera optics. Later in the year, GMOSS also suffered a major fault when the mask
exchange mechanism moved while the cassette was not fully retracted.
As previously mentioned, the Gemini North
shutdown was used to establish a failsafe
mechanism to prevent this from happening
again, and the same fix was fitted to GMOS-S
April2013
shortly thereafter. While GMOS-S was off-sky,
a number of science programs were transferred to GMOS-N, demonstrating the flexibility that comes with two telescopes running identical software and queues.
Visiting instruments began to impact Gemini
operations with a visit of the DSSI speckle
camera (PI: Steve Howell) showing that (reconstructed) image quality at the diffraction limit
can be achieved on Gemini in visible light.
A new policy for visiting instruments was
developed in consultation with the Gemini
Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) and Board, and is now posted
on the web site for potential instrument PIs’
information. DSSI, having demonstrated excellent performance on Gemini in mid-2012,
has been invited back subject to TAC approvals; it is now offered to the community in the
Call for Proposals for 2013B, as is TEXES (PI:
John Lacy).
The NICI exoplanet Campaign ended in 2012.
This major milestone was accompanied by
another: the release of the first tranche of
campaign data to the worldwide community.
Gemini continues to service large numbers
of Target of Opportunity (ToO) programs.
GeminiFocus
Figure 2.
Target of Opportunity
triggers compared
between 2011A and
2012A. For 2011A
(on the left), note –
particularly in the
south – a tendency to
delay triggering until
late in the semester
(the red line is a
uniform distribution
of triggers through the
semester). A significant
number of the late
triggers simply could
not be observed. At
both telescopes, the
situation was much
improved in 2012A
(right).
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