Figure 2.
GPI with the UCLA
Integral Field
Spectrograph
installed.
Good progress has been made on these
fronts, even though the NGSWFS is still lacking more optimizations to improve the current limiting magnitude. We are now considering an alternative design using a low-noise
detector that would improve both performance and efficiency on-sky.
The winter shutdown has also allowed us to
advertise the first GeMS results. In particular,
our team has presented as many as five talks
on GeMS at the 2012 SPIE (the international
society for optics and photonics) conference
in Amsterdam. The first on-sky GeMS results
were definitely one of the main highlights of
the meeting.
At the end of August 2012, we made a call
for System Verification (SV), offering around
60 hours of GeMS + GSAOI (the Gemini
South Adaptive Optics Imager, a NearInfrared camera working with GeMS) to
our users. We received about three times
as many proposals as we required; the final selection can be seen at: http://www.
gemini.edu/sciops/instruments/gsaoi/systemverification?q=node/11895. We also offered
GeMS/GSAOI for 2013A in a shared-risk mode
for a total of around 100 hours. We received
a very good response from the community
to that as well, with, once again, an over-subscription ratio of three.
30
GeminiFocus
By October 19th, GeMS went back
on-sky with a three-night run to
work out all the Laser and Laser
Guide Star Facility systems. A second commissioning run took place
at the beginning of November, aiming at optimizing and stabilizing
performance, as well as smoothing
operations. Unfortunately, a combination of low laser power, low
sodium content, and bad weather/
seeing prevented us from accomplishing all the tasks planned. Low
sodium return is currently one of
the main performance limitations
of GeMS. However, with a little
more work, we should improve the
laser’s power and performance in the current and upcoming semesters.
To illustrate how GeMS performed in the November run, the image in Figure 1 shows a
portion of the star cluster NGC 1851 acquired
in H-band. The full-width at half-maximum
of the stars are around 120 milliarcseconds
and uniform across the 85 x 85 arcsecond
field-of-view of GSAOI. Although not at the
level of the diffraction limit, the image still
offers a significant improvement compared
to uncorrected images. A third commissioning was run in December, and SV will start
in January. This New Year’s Eve will be a laser
night, wishing the best for GeMS in 2013.
Gemini Planet Imager Nears
Acceptance Testing
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) continues its march toward becoming the nextgeneration extrasolar planet imager and
spectrograph at the Gemini Observatory
(Figure 2). The GPI team is now preparing
for the instrument’s Acceptance Test Stage
(planned in the first quarter of 2013), where
the completed instrument will be subjected
to several tests to verify its performance and
usability. If all goes well, acceptance testing
December2012