Visiting Instruments
Figures 5-6.
(upper): HIP 74432,
a solar-analog star
observed with GRACES
in 1-fibre (objectonly) mode. (lower)
For comparison,
Feige 66, an O-type
spectrophotometric
standard star observed
in the same mode.
Both spectra have
resolving power in
excess of 65,000.
Gemini continues to welcome visiting instruments. After an absence of a few years,
Phoenix (high-resolution near-infrared spectrograph) returns to Gemini South in 2016A.
Also in the south, we will host a first run for
the dual-band Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI). Watch the Call for Proposals
pages for these opportunities.
You may also have noticed that GRACES,
our high-resolution spectroscopy capability
realized by sharing CFHT’s ESPaDOnS Spectrograph, is now listed with the other facility
instruments on the web pages, where previously we listed it as a “visitor” instrument.
In reality, GRACES is neither, but it has some
of the properties of both. GRACES relies on
a sharing agreement with CFHT, so we necessarily schedule it in a limited number of
blocks per semester; we cannot fully integrate it into the queue as we do with facility instruments. In that respect, it is not dissimilar to instruments such as NIRI and NICI,
which have relatively limited usage and are
not always installed on the telescope.
The project which developed GRACES was
not tasked to deliver a facility instrument,
but to give us a reasonably sensitive highresolution spectroscopy capability; we
would then monitor its performance and usage for about a year before deciding whether it should become better integrated into
the Observatory’s observing systems. We’re
now in that latter stage with GRACES, running the instrument for real and gauging
demand and success
(Figures 5 and 6).
If you want to see how
GRACES performs on
a range of targets, refer to the sample data
taken in the run-up to
the 2015B Semester.
You can get preview
images of the reduced
spectra here.
16
GeminiFocus
January 2016