the funding, and the design and build
of NGS2 was primarily done by a team
at the Australian National University
in collaboration with Gemini engi-
neers and astronomers. Without such a
strong collaboration the project would
not have prospered.
Figure 5.
A tense moment in
the control room
when all the AO
loops were closed
with NGS2 for the
first time. Official
first light on NGS2!
Credit: René Rutten
SCORPIO Making Steady
Progress
very quick, achieving a gain of several min-
utes over the original NGS system for every
acquisition (Figure 7).
Figure 6 (bottom left).
During the brief moments
of good weather on the
commissioning nights,
the full MCAO system with
NGS2 could be tested on
the central condensation
of stars in the Tarantula
Nebula (RMC 136).
Figure 7 (bottom right).
NGS2 control panel,
showing the field of view
on the NGS2 EMCCD
camera, and the identified
three natural guide
stars. Individual guide
star window images are
shown in real time on the
bottom left. This system
has proven to be much
easier, faster, and better
to operate.
18
A key driver for the NGS2 project was to work
with fainter guide stars. Whereas the original
NGS system could guide down to about R =
15.5 magnitude under good conditions, the
new system has been proven to work even
beyond R = 18 magnitude; a remarkable im-
provement that significantly increases sky
coverage, bringing many more objects into
reach of the GeMS/GSAOI instrument.
With the exciting build phase of the Spec-
trograph and Camera for Observations of
Rapid Phenomena in the Optical and Infra-
red (SCORPIO) — a powerful next generation
instrument for Gemini South — underway,
the SCORPIO team has been busy in the last
quarter of 2019. On November 22nd, Gemini
staff and subcontractor FRACTAL attended
the project’s Quarterly Review at the South-
west Research Institute (SwRI) facilities in
San Antonio, Texas. Gemini staff noted that
significant progress has been made on sev-
During the upcoming observing runs with
GeMS/GSAOI, we will gain more experience
on NGS2’s performance. We will update the
web pages with the latest information for
users. Meanwhile, we invite interested users
to exploit the system with new and previ-
ously inaccessible targets.
The NGS2 project has been made possible
thanks to the tight collaboration between
many people. The initiative, a large part of
GeminiFocus
January 2020