Prior to the meeting, we sent a survey to our
international user community to capture the
main issues they face with Gemini and were
very pleased to receive 180 responses. We
assessed these responses during the meeting and began forming a picture of which
issues caused the most concern for users. A
discussion followed with Observatory and
National Gemini Office staff where one of
the major issues became readily apparent:
Gemini has not communicated effectively
with its user community, because many of
the specific issues the users raised had already been solved. This is great news for
the user community, but flags an important
communication issue between users and
the Observatory that needs to be addressed.
The Committee distilled the users’ input and
our experience at the telescope into a report
listing a series of issues that the community
experiences and specific recommendations
for the Observatory to address. There were
also a number of areas in which the Committee wanted to commend the Observatory
for its efforts in addressing user needs.
If you would like to share thoughts on this
document, or the Observatory in general,
please feel free to contact any member of
the UCG listed below.
Mike Gladders, Chair:
[email protected]
Vicky Alonso: [email protected]
Sarah Brough: [email protected]
Eduardo Cypriano: [email protected]
Craig Heinke: [email protected]
Armin Rest: [email protected]
Tom Richtler: [email protected]
Stuart Ryder: [email protected]
The Committee also would like to thank the
Gemini Observatory for supporting every
aspect of their visit.
Sarah Brough is a Research Astronomer at the
Australian Astronomical Observatory in Sydney,
Australia. She can be reached at: [email protected]
This report has been delivered to the Director of the Observatory for his response and
and will be available on the Gemini website.
44
GeminiFocus
December2012