GNAOI Request for Proposals
Gemini Observatory announces an oppor-
tunity for the Gemini North Adaptive Optics
Imager (GNAOI) — a planned instrument to
be used with both the Gemini North multi-
conjugate adaptive optics system (GNAO;
which is now under development) and with
a planned future ground layer adaptive op-
tics system. We expect that this imager will
be a low-cost low-risk design using a single
HAWAII-4RG detector, and intend for GNAO
to provide a 2-arcminute field of view with a
Strehl ratio of no less than 30% over the en-
tire field of view under median seeing condi-
tions in K band. A Request for Proposals to
design this imager has been released and is
available on the Gemini website here.
MAROON-X Deployed at
Gemini North
MAROON-X, a new visiting high-resolution
spectrograph at Gemini North (Figure 3), will
be available to users in 2020. Constructed at
the University of Chicago, MAROON-X is ex-
pected to be able to detect Earth-size plan-
ets in the habitable zones of mid- to late-M
dwarfs using the radial velocity detection
method.
The important wavelength range for the
instrument is 700-900 nanometers and the
resolving power approximately 80,000. To
achieve this precision the instrument must
be intrinsically stable and the optical setup
fixed, so the entire instrument has been
placed in a vacuum tank in a thermally sta-
ble enclosure, which the instrument team
assembled in the Gemini North Pier Lab,
four levels below the telescope. After a year
of monitoring the temperature stability in
the enclosure, commissioning the Front End
(which mounts on the Instrument Support
Structure and holds the optical fiber posi-
tioner), and integrating the spectrograph
itself in the Gemini North Pier Lab, the team
October 2019
has begun commissioning. See a press re-
lease about MAROON-X available from the
University of Chicago.
GIRMOS Conceptual Design
Review a Success
The Gemini InfraRed Multi-Object Spectro-
graph (GIRMOS) is a powerful new visiting
instrument being designed and built for the
Gemini telescope by a Canadian consortium
of universities led by the University of Toron-
to and HAA. This instrument will overcome
a key limitation in existing adaptive optics
(AO) facilities; where exisitng integral field
spectrographs are designed to observe only
single objects with adequate atmospheric
correction, GIRMOS is being designed to
have the ability to observe multiple sources
simultaneously with high spatial resolution
while obtaining spectra at the same time
(Sivanandam et al., 2018).
GIRMOS accomplishes this by taking advan-
tage of the latest developments in multi-ob-
ject AO (MOAO) and integral field spectros-
copy. It exploits the AO correction from both
a telescope-based AO system (either GeMS
or the prospective Gemini North AO system)
and its own additional MOAO system that
feeds multiple 1- to 2.4- micron integral field
GeminiFocus
Figure 3.
The MAROON-X
instrument team and
Gemini staff pose with
the instrument, installed
on Gemini North on
September 23rd, and
ready for first light.
Although the Front
End was successfully
commissioned in
December, now if you
look closely, you can
see the optical fiber
that runs down to the
spectrograph in the
Gemini North Pier Lab
below. Left to right: Paul
McBride, John Randrup,
Rody Kawaihae, Harlan
Uehara, Eduardo Tapia
(all Gemini staff),
Andreas Seifahrt,
David Kaspar, Julian
Stuermer (all University
of Chicago), and Alison
Peck and John White
(both Gemini staff).
Credit: Julian Stuermer
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