Markus Kissler-Patig
Director’s Message
Ending a Strong Year in Full Stride
As we enter the last quarter of 2015, we can already predict that we will look back at another hugely successful year for the Gemini Observatory and its partners.
The scientific output of the Observatory is very high and world-leading in several areas —
perhaps most prominently in the field of exoplanet research, thanks to the spectacular results made possible with the Gemini Planet Imager, whose discoveries keep making headlines in newspapers around the world. Some impressive results were also recently achieved
with FLAMINGOS-2 (on Brown Dwarfs) and GeMS/GSAOI (on deep precision photometry),
positioning Gemini as a premier observatory in its class. (See the lead feature article in this
issue on the discovery of 51 Eridani starting on page 3, and a few selected Science Highlights beginning on page 8.)
The last quarter saw the first GRACES (Gemini Remote Access to the CFHT’s Spectrograph)
run in August. This collaboration between Gemini and the Canada-France-Hawai‘i Telescope
(CFHT) stands on solid footing and the 270-meter-long fibers that connect the Maunakea
facilities continues to reliably transfer Gemini’s light into CFHT’s powerful high-resolution
spectrograph. Although some of Gemini’s time on GRACES was spent suffering through
a string of near misses with Pacific hurricanes, a good number of GRACES programs were
completed. We are looking forward to the first published results.
Even More Innovations
Gemini will offer two more innovations starting in October 2015. First, we will launch our
new Science Data Archive, which will enable users everywhere to experience a new archive interface. Although transparent for the users, the real change is that the data are
now stored on the Cloud. Indeed, Gemini has deployed the archive on the “Amazon Web
October 2015
GeminiFocus
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