Fast Turnaround
GHOST
Over the next few months, Gemini staff will
be preparing to launch the new Fast Turnaround proposal mode. This program will offer monthly proposal deadlines and a rapid
review of proposals. Accepted programs will
be ready for scheduling within a month of
the proposals being received. The Fast Turnaround scheme will offer Gemini users new
opportunities to follow up unexpected astronomical events or discoveries, carry out pilot
studies, or quickly obtain the data needed to
finish a Ph.D. thesis, among others.
In April 2014, the Association of Universities
for Research in Astronomy delivered to the
Sydney-based Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) a signed contract for the design, building, testing, and commissioning
of the Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST, previously referred to as
GHOS) –– for use on the twin 8-meter telescopes. AAO will have two partners on the
project: the National Research Council Herzberg in Victoria, Canada, which will be designing and building the spectrograph portion of GHOST; and the Australian National
University Research School of Astronomy
and Astrophysics in Canberra, which will be
developing the instrument’s software.
One novel aspect of the program is that Principal Investigators (PIs) will review each other’s proposals. Thus, submitting a proposal
also commits the PI (or a co-investigator)
to providing grades and brief written assessments of up to 10 proposals submitted
during that round by other astronomers.
Gemini staff will then use this combined assessment of scientific merit to create a “miniqueue” of programs that will be executed
on three nights per month reserved for Fast
Turnaround observations.
The program’s design — including the peer
review system — has been assessed by a
committee of internal and external experts,
and, in May 2014, the Gemini Board of Directors gave approval to launch a trial using
10 percent of the telescope time at Gemini
North. (The remainder of the telescope time
will continue to be available for regular proposals, Large and Long Programs, etc. for the
foreseeable future.)
During the rest of this year, we will be establishing the software and procedures necessary to run and monitor the program, in time
for the first proposal deadline at the end
of January 2015. More information will be
made available as the program’s web pages
are developed; readers may also be interested in the recent SPIE proceedings describing
the design of the plan (available here).
July 2014
Rounding out the project team roster are
Gemini Operations and Development team
members from both the north and south
sites. They will work closely with their Australian and Canadian counterparts to ensure
a smooth transition of this new instrument
into Gemini operations.
Work on the project’s Preliminary Design
stage has been proceeding for the past
couple of months. Last May, instrument
technicians, engineers, and scientists gathered in Sydney, Australia, where they spent
three days making significant progress.
With an end of year 2014 goal to have the
preliminary design ready for review, and a
3rd-quarter 2017 goal to be commissioning
this new fiber-fed, bench-mounted spectrograph, the GHOST project team is on its way
to providing this long-awaited capability to
the Gemini community.
Gemini Generation-4
Instrument #3 Project
With develop