Gemini South
Annual Shutdown
a Success
Figure 1.
Assistant Engineer
Mariah Birchard (left)
and Senior Electronic
Technician Alejandro
Gutiérrez (right), work
on the maintenance
of one of the modules
of the Acquisition and
Guiding Unit.
A successful annual shut-
down at Gemini South
ran from August 12th to
August 27th. Accomplish-
ments during this shut-
down included replace-
ment of the Cassegrain
rotator encoder, repairs to
the helium lines, and main-
tenance of the Acquisition
and Guidance Unit. In the
spirit of sharing resources
ramping up to the National
Science Foundation’s Center for Optical-in-
frared Astronomy (NCOA), we had some ex-
cellent support from a few Cerro Tololo Inter-
American Observatory technicians, doing
cross-training and knowledge sharing and
tightening relationships.
Credit: Manuel Paredes
Figure 2.
Cover of Gemini’s
Strategic Scientific Plan,
approved by the Gemini
Board of Directors.
Strategic Scientific Plan
The Strategic Scientific Plan (SSP), approved
by the Gemini Board of Directors during
their most recent meeting, outlines the sci-
entific direction and activities of the Gemini
Observatory in the 2020s. It also provides a
timeline for the Observatory’s major instru-
mentation and operations development
efforts. The motivation for the SSP is to en-
sure that Gemini remains at the forefront
of ground-based optical/IR astronomy and
best serves the needs of our international
user community throughout the coming de-
cade. We encourage all of our users to have a
look and see where Gemini is headed!
October 2019
GeminiFocus
23