Michael West, formerly of the Department of
Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary’s University has been hired as head of
Science Operations for Gemini South.. Most recently
Michael was on the faculty at the University of Hawaii Hilo.
He was also a postdoctoral fellow at CITA between 1989 and 1991. Michael
maintains his association with
The Gemini Director, with input from the ITAC and a panel of independent experts, has chosen an international team led by Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii to conduct a major campaign to directly image planets around nearby stars using NICI. Harvey Richer (UBC) and Pawel Artymowicz (Toronto) are the two Canadians on the team. The NICI Campaign is planned to begin in 2006 and will be carried out over the next two to three years using 50 nights of observing time.
Gemini has (almost) reached a steady state of operations with only a few new instruments expected to arrive in the next couple of years. Later this year, NICI and FLAMINGOS 2 will be delivered to Gemini South while in 2007 Gemini will take delivery of the Gemini South adaptive optics system (the basis for MCAO) and a laser guide star system. This reduction in the arrival of new instruments and commissioning of new telescope modes has allowed Gemini to put more effort towards optimizing scientific operations.
Gemini’s operational efficiency has improved significantly in the past few semesters. Both Gemini telescopes now operate in multi-instrument mode every night. For example, science observations may be taken with GMOS until the moon rises at which time MICHELLE observations will be taken and then, if the seeing improves, Altair/NIRI programs will be executed. This increased flexibility has allowed Gemini to optimize operations and increase program completion rates. Gemini queue completion goals are:
Gemini’s open shutter efficiency has been routinely monitored since August 2004. The shutter-open efficiency is defined as the sum of all science exposures plus calibrations obtained between evening and morning nautical twilight divided by the total usable time available. Gemini’s peak shutter-open efficiencies typically exceed 80% and the average values are in the range of 60-70%. These values are comparable for all instruments on both telescopes. As might be expected, the two GMOS instruments have among the highest efficiency values because individual exposure times tend to be longer for optical observations. These results compare very favorably with those reported elsewhere for other large telescopes.
More details on Gemini operations plus science highlights are available in the latest edition of Gemini Focus (http://www.gemini.edu/files/pio/newsletters/nwsltr31_12_2005.pdf)
Gemini operates almost completely in queue mode. In order for the queue to operate efficiently, the various observing condition bins must be (over)filled. Gemini receives a lot of proposals for the best image quality or photometric conditions, but, as expected, has trouble attracting proposals for the poor conditions.
Poor weather proposals: often the queue contains insufficient proposals for the poorest conditions, despite the best efforts of the National TACs to pass on a balanced package of proposals to Gemini. To encourage submission of more poor weather proposals, those with the following observing condition constraints will receive special consideration at the TACs. Neither the PI nor partner country will be charged for any time used:
The Sky Background constraint can be specified and it is acceptable for these programs to request dark time.
Another effect of the queue is to limit visits to the telescopes by graduate students and post-docs. HIA manages an NSERC grant that supports travel to the telescopes managed by HIA for those who do not have their own source of funds. The terms of reference of this grant does allow for visits to Gemini as long as the student or PDF has been awarded time by CTAC. Gemini encourages visits by students and prefers visits of 2 weeks or longer to allow the student to fully benefit from the experience.
The Gemini tool for Phase I proposal submission has been upgraded. PIT now allows PIs to print out their proposals, including figures, properly formatted. There are restrictions on the formats of the figures (no PostScript files) and PIs should remember that CTAC receives black and white copies of the proposals.