Contributions by Gemini staff
News for Users
The final quarter of 2015 brings many changes and milestones
at Gemini, from the successful implementation of Base Facility
Operations at Gemini North, to final resolution of the GMOS-S
Hamamatsu CCD readout issues. Also of note is the impact of a
major earthquake at Gemini South, new optical coatings at both
telescopes, and the anticipation of visitor instruments in 2016.
Figure 1 (top).
Image from the westpointing cloudcam,
showing a moonlit UKIRT
and a nice meteor in the
background. Cloudcams
are used as part of the
Base Facility Operations
at Gemini North.
Figure 2
(bottom).
Operating Gemini North
from the Base
Not what you want
to see! This image
from the northfacing cloudcam,
on a night in midNovember, shows
the Keck and IRTF
domes in the
foreground, with
approaching cirrus
in the background.
Gemini North is now operating every night from the base facility on
North A’ohoku Place in Hilo. We’ve
been working for more than a year
to make this possible, developing
and implementing new monitoring
and control capabilities; gradually
we confined the night staff to the
summit control room, to gain confidence that we hadn’t missed anything before relocating to sea level.
Once we had cameras and microphones
up and running on the observing floor,
and a reliability upgrade to the mirror covers, we removed the need for night staff
to be in the dome; we could now open or
close the dome or telescope mirror covers
remotely. As evaluating weather was the
most challenging task for the night staff,
we installed additional weather sensors
January 2016
GeminiFocus
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