1 Director’s Message 50 Fast Turnaround Program Markus Kissler-Patig Pilot Underway Rachel Mason 3 Probing Time Delays in a Gravitationally Lensed Quasar 54 Base Facility Operations Keren Sharon Gustavo Arriagada 7 GPI Discovers the Most Jupiter-like 58 GRACES: The Beginning of a Exoplanet Ever Directly Detected Scientific Legacy Julien Rameau and Robert De Rosa André-Nicolas Chené 12 First Likely Planets in a Nearby 62 The New Cloud-based Gemini Circumbinary Disk Observatory Archive Valerie Rapson Paul Hirst 16 RCW 41: Dissecting a Very Young 65 Solar Panel System Installed at Cluster with Adaptive Optics Gemini North Benoit Neichel Alexis-Ann Acohido 21 Science Highlights 67 Gemini Legacy Image Releases Nancy A. Levenson Gemini staff contributions 30 On the Horizon 72 Journey Through the Universe Gemini staff contributions Janice Harvey 37 News for Users 75 Viaje al Universo Gemini staff contributions Maria-Antonieta García 46 Adaptive Optics at Gemini South Gaetano Sivo, Vincent Garrel, Rodrigo Carrasco, Markus Hartung, Eduardo Marin, Vanessa Montes, and Chad Trujillo

ON THE COVER: GeminiFocus January 2016 A montage featuring GeminiFocus is a quarterly publication a recent Flamingos-2 of the Gemini Observatory image of the galaxy 670 N. A‘ohoku Place, Hilo, Hawai‘i 96720, USA NGC 253’s inner region Phone: (808) 974-2500 Fax: (808) 974-2589 (as discussed in the Science Highlights Online viewing address: section, page 21; with www.gemini.edu/geminifocus an inset showing the Managing Editor: Peter Michaud stellar supercluster Science Editor: Nancy A. Levenson identified as the galaxy’s nucleus) Associate Editor: Stephen James O’Meara and cover pages Designer: Eve Furchgott/Blue Heron Multimedia from each of issue of Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or GeminiFocus in 2015. recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the Gemini Partnership.

ii GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Markus Kissler-Patig

Director’s Message The Culmination of Another Successful Year at Gemini

After three years of effort, we proudly announce that Gemini Observatory has accom- plished its transition to a leaner and more agile facility, operating now on a ~25% reduced budget compared to 2012. Achieving that goal was no easy task. It required questioning every one of our activities, redefining our core mission, and reducing our staff by almost a quarter; ultimately we relied on the ideas and joint efforts of everyone in the Observatory.

As we continue with the 2016 budget, we managed to fit all our current activities within the reduced budget, which our Finance Committee and Board of Directors have already approved. Huge kudos to all the Gemini staff for their contributions to three years of mas- sive changes!

So Where Are We Now, and What’s Next? The Gemini Observatory’s governance has provided us with guidelines for 2016-2021. A key statement is that: “Gemini will strive to be the best observatory in the world for the ex- ecution of flexible, innovative, and efficient science programs.” I believe that we already are, and will continue to be so well into the future! Here’s at least six reasons why.

First, we are unique in offering our users multiple ways of requesting telescope time for programs (regular, Long and Large, and Fast Turnaround). Second, Gemini’s twin 8-meter telescopes are now equipped with four state-of-the-art facility-class instruments, several of which utilize adaptive-optics. Third, Gemini has the only 8- to 10-meter-class telescope offering multi-conjugate adaptive optics. Fourth, we are the only 8- to 10-meter-class ob- servatory to so openly welcome visitor instruments; so much so that our user community has built up a “waiting list” for them. Fifth, Gemini North is the first 8- to 10-meter-class tele- scope to fully operate remotely at night. And Sixth, Gemini is the first major observatory

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 1 to archive its data in the commercial Cloud. We also now offer monthly Fast Turnaround Now for the clincher: we achieved all of this (FT) proposals for time on the Gemini South while operating with a fault downtime of telescope (in addition to Gemini North), and less than 4%! the program is picking up fast in popular- ity. Also, the first peer-reviewed paper from Gemini is magnificently set-up to enable the an FT proposal earlier this year is now pub- great science of the Gemini community in lished (see feature science article, page 3). the next years. But we do not want to stop And, if you have not tasted our new archive there. That is why the Gemini Board has re- yet, it is fully functioning, and we welcome cently kicked off a Strategic Vision Commit- feedback (see the article in this issue starting tee to explore what exciting role Gemini can on page 62). play beyond 2020 — such as interacting closely with new observatories, in particular Finally, we had another successful year of those planned on Maunakea in Hawai‘i and Journey Through the Universe and Viaje al the Cerro Tololo/Pachón complex in Chile. Universo, our flagship outreach programs at Stay tuned, as we ask both our stakeholders Gemini North and South (respectively). Our and users to contribute ideas to this vision staff contributed to many activities and were exercise during 2016 rewarded by hundreds of smiles in the faces of the attending children.

Even More Positive News Overall, I believe that Gemini is in great shape We are also making good progress on our to face the coming years and beyond, when two next facility-class instruments. GHOST, we hope to offer more exciting opportuni- our next high-resolution spectrograph, just ties than ever. Right now, the future certainly passed the first part of its Critical Design Re- looks exhilarating! Join us in “Exploring the view, and is on track to be commissioned by Universe, Sharing its Wonders.” the end of 2017/early 2018. As for the instru- Markus Kissler-Patig is Gemini’s Director. He can ment after that (Gen4#3), its four feasibility be reached at: [email protected] studies have concluded and the reports are now public. Prepare for the full Call for Pro- posals in 2016 Q2.

On the operations front, the biggest news is that base facility operations began at Gemini North in November and nighttime staff is no longer needed at the summit during obser- vations. This is one step on the path to our fi- nal goal: Offering our users operations from your favorite sofa, anywhere in the world.

2 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Keren Sharon January 2016

Probing Time Delays in a Gravitationally Lensed Quasar

Fast Turnaround observations with the Gemini North telescope are used to measure the difference in the arrival time of photons coming from a distant quasar, as they travel on different paths from the quasar to us due to gravitational lensing. The Gemini observations also produced deep spectroscopic data with GMOS that allowed our research team to obtain redshifts for other lensed galaxies behind the cluster.

Imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has uncovered many gravitational lenses including SDSS J2222 + 2745 — a galaxy cluster whose projected mass density is high enough to bend space-time, causing light traveling near it from a distant quasar to change its path. This phenomenon, which is a theoretical prediction of General Relativity, is called gravitational lensing.

Describing a Strong Gravitational Lens When we observe massive objects, such as galaxy clusters, we often find that distant back- ground galaxies appear distorted and stretched, and their apparent position in the sky is dif- ferent than their actual positions.

The equations that describe gravitational lensing dictate by how much the light is deflected due to the gravitational potential of an intervening object. The more massive an astronomical object, the stronger its lensing potential, and the larger the deflection of light. In some cases, which we call Strong Lensing (SL), there is more than one solution to the lensing equation:

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 3 these lensing clusters, and most importantly, measure the spectro- scopic redshifts of the lensed back- ground sources.

Of the hundreds of lensing clus- ters found in the SGAS, SDSS J2222 + 2745 is the only one that lenses a background quasar into at least six images of the same back- ground source (Dahle et al., 2013). This lensing configuration is so unique, that, in fact, this case is only the third one known of a quasar that is strongly lensed by a galaxy cluster. The other ones, SDSS J1004 + 4112 and SDSS J1029 + 2623, (Inada et al., 2003; Inada et al., 2006) split the light from a background quasar into five and three images, respectively.

Time-Stamping Light Figure 1. light is allowed to travel from point A to point Quasars are among the most luminous ob- A 30’’ x 30’’ field around B on more than one path, resulting in mul- the center of the galaxy tiple images of the same background source. jects known in the Universe. They are pow- cluster in the SDSS ered by supermassive black holes accreting J2222+2745 lensing Such is the case of the SDSS J2222 + 2745 matter in an active galaxy’s nucleus. What system. The composite system — a galaxy cluster at z = 0.5, that makes lensed quasars uniquely interesting color image combines strongly lenses a few background sources, is that their luminosity changes in time. A Nordic Optical including a quasar at z = 2.82 and a galaxy at quasar’s brightness can vary on time scales Telescope and Gemini z = 2.3 (Figure 1). from days to months, owing to random phys- North Fast Turnaround data. The slight color This lensing cluster was discovered by an ical changes in the accretion disk, and to the difference in the three international team of researchers, led by small region from which the light is emitted images of the quasar (A, Michael Gladders from the University of Chi- (the supermassive black hole). This variabili- B, and C) results from cago, who mined data from the Sloan Digi- ty allows us to put a time stamp on the arrival the different optical of light from a lensed source. filters used during the tal Sky Survey to find strong lensing clusters observations that were that stretch and distort background galaxies Whenever multiple lensed images of the made at different times. into giant arcs. As part of this Sloan Giant same source are formed, each one is a snap- Arcs Survey (SGAS), the team examined im- shot of the source taken at a different cos- ages of ~ 30,000 galaxy clusters, and system- mic time. This is because the light from each atically identified evidence of gravitational source has taken a different path from the lensing in hundreds of galaxy clusters, many quasar to us; and the time it takes light to ar- of which were discovered for the first time. rive depends on the length of each path and Using follow-up imaging and spectroscopy the gravitational potential along this path. with several telescopes, including Gemini North, Gladders’ team was able to confirm In the case of SDSS J2222 + 2745, six photons

4 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 leaving the quasar simultaneously at the speed of light encounter a mas- sive galaxy cluster, whose gravity sends them on different paths to our telescope. The first may take a few bil- lion years to arrive; the second may come a couple of years later, followed by the third a month or two later, and so on. If we can measure this time lag between the arrival of light to the different image positions, we can ef- fectively measure the light-distance along these different paths and thus measure the geometry of the Uni- verse.

Promptly after the discovery of SDSS J2222 + 2745 a follow-up campaign, led by Håkon Dahle from the Univer- sity of Oslo, was initiated using the 2.5-meter ing period. However, recent observations, Figure 2. Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) at the Ca- including imaging with NOT, and with the Light curves of the quasar nary Islands. The team observed the field of Gemini North telescope awarded through a images A (blue symbols), B SDSS J2222 + 2745 approximately every two Fast Turnaround proposal, helped pin down (green), and C (red). Figure reproduced from Dahle et weeks, resulting in over 40 observations in the elusive measurement of a time delay of al., 2015. good conditions. image C. As predicted by the lens model, im- age C leads image A by about two years, at Dahle and his team used these observations about 722 days. to construct a light curve for the brighter three of the six images (Figure 2). They found that the quasar’s brightness varies by as What’s Next? much as 0.8 magnitude (a factor of two in- Using spectroscopic observations with Gem- crease or decrease in flux) over four years. ini North (2015B; Principal Investigator Keren Dahle then used computational techniques Sharon), we were able to determine the red- to cross-correlate the light curves of images shifts of lensed galaxies recently identified A and B in order to identify similar patterns in in our Hubble Space Telescope (HST) obser- the fluctuation of light. The team found that vations of this field. The new redshifts will the time lag between image A and B is about inform a more accurate and precise lensing 47.7 days, which means that if image A sud- model of the cluster, which will improve our denly brightens, image B will do the same theoretical understanding of this system. thing 47.7 days later. Having measured the lags between three A robust measurement of the time lag of im- of the six images of the quasar in SDSS age C was harder to obtain. The team’s lens J2222 + 2745, this lens system provides us model, computed by Keren Sharon (author with a rare tool: foresight. In particular, with of this article) predicted Image C to lead im- a measurement of a negative time lag of im- ages A and B by a few months to years; thus age C, we now have a two-year warning for to measure it required a longer monitor- the behavior of images A and B (Figure 3).

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 5 Figure 3. The combined light curve of image A (blue), B (green), and C (red), by shifting the data points of A and B by their respective time delay and magnification ratios: -47.7 days and -0.34 magnitude for B, and 722 days and 0.483 magnitude for C. The shifted light curve of C predicts the expected brightness of image A in 2016 and 2017. Figure reproduced from Dahle et al., 2015.

If C brightens significantly, as it did in 2014 and the Swift space telescope in UV and X- and 2015, we know to expect the same mag- ray, in a program awarded by the University nitude of brightening in A and B about two of Michigan. We’ll also use observations with years later, and plan future observations for the HST in Cycle 22 (PI: Keren Sharon) to that time. compute a detailed lens model of the clus- ter, to further constrain the mass distribution Meanwhile, our team has embarked on a of the foreground lens. multi-wavelength monitoring campaign aimed at studying the physical conditions The Gemini monitoring will uniquely enable in the quasar’s host galaxy. In this program, a measurement of the time delays of the we will use Gemini and NOT in the optical, three faint images of the quasar: D, E, and F Figure 4. (Figure 4). These images are much dimmer This figure, reproduced than A, B, and C, and their detection is further from Dahle et al., shows the field of SDSS complicated by their position near the bright J2222 + 2745 after the galaxies at the center of the cluster. These bright cluster galaxies forthcoming measurements could shed light were modeled and on the details of the distribution of the lumi- their light subtracted nous mass and dark matter at the very core of from the image .This the galaxy cluster, at a resolution that cannot procedure reveals be obtained by any other method. the three fainter images (D, E, and F) Keren Sharon is an astronomer and assistant of the quasar that are embedded in the light professor at the University of Michigan of these galaxies. The astronomy department and can be reached at: red contours show the [email protected] light distribution in the original image.

6 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Julien Rameau and Robert De Rosa October 2015 GPI Discovers the Most Jupiter-like Exoplanet Ever Directly Detected After 10 years of development, the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) — the most powerful of its kind — started operating routinely in late 2013. After observing just 44 stars, GPI found its first exoplanet — a young, cool object that is the most Jupiter-like, and probably the lowest-mass exoplanet, ever directly imaged. This finding will also lead to a better understanding of how our Solar System formed.

Detecting an extrasolar planet directly from its infrared radiation is extremely challenging. This is mainly due to two factors: (1) the large contrast in brightness between the star and planet (around a million to one), and (2) the small angular separation between the star and planet (under one arcsecond). Moreover, the Earth’s turbulent atmosphere strongly degrades the im- age quality, preventing large ground-based telescopes from reaching their theoretical diffrac- tion limit. To overcome this detrimental effect, many world-class observatories, like Gemini, employ high-angular resolution instruments with adaptive optics (AO) systems to both sense, and correct for, wavefront distortions, producing extremely sharp images free from atmo- spheric distortions.

The first generation of AO-fed instruments discovered a handful of extrasolar planets with contrasts of ~105, or at angular separations greater than one arcsecond. To detect fainter, less- massive planets closer to their parent star (probing scales similar to our own Solar System), an international team of astronomers and engineers conceived, designed, and built the most powerful AO instrument to date: the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) on the Gemini South tele- scope in Chile.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 7 A Perfect Target 51 Eri is a nearby star 29.4 parsecs (96 light

years) distant with a mass of 1.6 MSun. It be- longs to the Beta Pictoris moving group, which has a well-determined age of about 20 million years (Myr). 51 Eri is also co-moving with the tight M-dwarf binary GJ 3305 at a distance of 2,000 astronomical units (AU). Studies of the star’s motion through space, and spectral characteristics of the GJ 3305 binary, provide further evidence of membership within the Beta Pictoris moving group, confirming the age of the 51 Eri system.

Given 51 Eri’s young age, any planetary-mass companion will still be cooling from its re- cent formation, and will therefore be bright Figure 1. The Power of GPI enough to be detected in the near-infrared Discovery image of 51 via direct imaging. Additionally, the infrared GPI uses the most advanced technologies Eri b at H band (1.66 excesses measured in the spectral energy dis- microns) with the to achieve unprecedented performance in tribution (SED) of 51 Eri by infrared satellites, Gemini Planet Imager terms of angular resolution and contrast. Im- such as WISE and Herschel, are indicative of in December 2014. The age quality is restored by up to 90 percent of a circumstellar debris disk — the residuals of central star (indicated the theoretical diffraction limit, and most of by a cross) has been putative planetary formation. Determination the starlight is blocked by a coronagraph to subtracted as a part of the precise geometry of the debris disk will attenuate the primary star’s glare, revealing of the data reduction require further investigation. process, and the faint point sources close to the star. Instead residuals are masked of taking a single image, GPI obtains a low- 51 Eri proved to be the perfect target to out to enhance the resolution infrared spectrum for each pixel search for an exoplanet, but despite previous planet’s contrast in the in the field-of-view, facilitating the detection attempts to search for planetary-mass com- image. The projected of an exoplanet’s atmosphere and the most panions with a number of older instruments, separation between the 51 Eri b remained elusive until the GPIES team planet and the star is prominent chemicals found there. detected it in December 2014. At a projected approximately 13 AU, After a successful first light in November 2013, with a contrast of ~ 10 6. separation from 51 Eri of only 13.4 AU, and an GPI started routine operations and became Image credit: C. Marois estimated mass from evolutionary models of available to the wider astronomical commu- (NRC-Herzberg), J. Rameau 2 M , 51 Eri b is the first directly-imaged exo- nity. Gemini Observatory also selected the Jup (University of Montréal). planet most resembling the gas giants within GPI Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) team to con- our own Solar System (Figures 2 and 3). duct a 3-year, 890-hour campaign to search for, and characterize, new extrasolar systems around some 600 stars. In December 2014, Methane, Methane, Methane after observing only 44 stars, the team identi- As GPI uses an integral field spectrograph, we fied a point source one million times fainter were able to extract a low-resolution spec- than one of the stars (51 Eridani; 51 Eri), at trum of 51 Eri b, which, like Jupiter, shows an angular separation of only 0.5 arcsecond; strong methane absorption. We immediately GPI’s first planet discovery: 51 Eri b (Figure 1). recognized the significance of the discovery, as it provides a view of what Jupiter might 8 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 spectrum, and the L’ photom- Figure 2. etry of 51 Eri b (with cloud- Schematic diagram comparing the 51 Eri free equilibrium chemistry system with our own atmosphere models), gives Solar System. Both it an effective temperature systems harbor two of 750 K, consistent with the debris belts, assuming presence of methane. But the a two-component fit to data also suggest an unphysi- the infrared excess of 51 Eri, with gas giants cal radius of 0.76 R , and Jup in between. 51 Eri also high surface gravity, as seen hosts a binary M-dwarf in the spectra of old brown at about 2,000 AU, a dwarfs (Figure 4, bottom separation far too distant panel). to gravitationally perturb the inner system. From The results did not surprise 51 Eri b, each component us, since the same models of the wide binary would had previously given similar shine as brightly as extreme properties for oth- Venus, and they would er directly-imaged planets, be separated by 17 arcminutes, roughly half such as HR 8799 bcde. To fit the angular diameter of have looked like in its infancy, while offering the spectrum of 51 Eri b with more realistic the Moon from Earth. us a clue as to how it formed. properties, we used a partly cloudy non-equi- In January 2015 we obtained follow-up ob- librium chemistry model (Figure 4, bottom servations with GPI at J and H bands (1.24 and panel); models of this kind generally agree 1.66 microns, respectively) as well as L’ obser- reasonably well with the observations of vations (3.78 microns) with the W. M. Keck Ob- other imaged exoplanets. This new fit yielded servatory NIRC2 near-infrared imager and the a lower temperature (700 K) and a physical radius of (1 R ) consistent with evolutionary Figure 3. facility’s AO system. We then used the data Jup The current population of models for substellar objects; it also favored to construct the planet’s near-infrared SED. known extrasolar planets The most significant property of 51 Eri b was a lower surface gravity, consistent with the classified by their detection that, in addition to water vapor absorption, planet’s young age. techniques. The mass and semi-major axis its spectrum exhibits of the four gas the strongest methane giants of our absorption measured Solar System to date for a directly im- are overplotted aged exoplanet. (letters). 51 Eri b (large red star) is While the spectrum of 51 the least-massive Eri b resembles that of directly-imaged a typical T6 field brown planet, found dwarf several billion at a separation years old (Figure 4, top similar to the scale of the Solar panel), its red H-L’ color System. Source: suggests that the object exoplanets.eu, is both younger, and retrieved August less massive than, a field 20, 2015. dwarf. A fit of the GPI JH

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 9 Figure 4. Solar System-like? Atmosphere: The presence of methane in the Near-infrared SED of atmosphere of 51 Eri b is by far the most im- 51 Eri b measured by 51 Eri b is unique among the current pop- portant aspect of this discovery. Previous GPI at J and H bands, ulation of directly imaged exoplanets in directly-imaged exoplanets exhibit dusty and by Keck/NIRC2 many aspects: atmospheres, where thick clouds block the at L’ band (blue). The main molecular Location and Mass: GPI is among the first in- light coming from the deep atmosphere and absorption bands are struments sensitive enough to image planets prevent an investigation of its chemical com- labeled on the top in extrasolar systems at scales similar to our position. 51 Eri b is different, as the clouds are panel. The top panel own Solar System; and the discovery of 51 Eri more tenuous, allowing us to probe low alti- compares the spectrum b demonstrates this. At 13.4 AU, the planet is tude cloud layers and determine their chemi- with the previously cal content. known planetary located at a separation between the orbit of mass object 2M 1207 Saturn and Uranus, and with a model-depen- 51 Eri b’s methane-dominated spectrum is dent mass of 2 M , it would represent the b (which has a very Jup similar to what models predict for a planet dusty atmosphere) and least-massive exoplanet imaged to date. of its mass. This newly discovered world may, with a typical T6 field brown dwarf. On the The exoplanets previously resolved with in fact, resemble what Jupiter looked like bottom panel, the best direct imaging are typically found at a few soon after its formation. With this discovery, fitting low-temperature, tens to hundreds of AU, with masses great- astronomers now know how to differentiate cloud-free, and partly between L- and T-type young planetary-mass er than 5 MJup, making the architecture of cloudy models are these systems very different from that of our objects, where atmospheres transition from able to reproduce the own Solar System. With GPI, a new low-mass fully dusty to cloud-free, respectively. This spectrum, but lead transition also occurs in a narrow range of ef- to distinct physical population of exoplanets is now accessible properties (see text). by direct imaging. Further discoveries will fective temperatures, between the 1,000 K of better our understanding of the formation HR 8799 b and the 700 K of 51 Eri b. and architecture of planetary systems, and Formation: The formation process for gas gi- place the properties of our own Solar Sys- ant planets is a long-standing debate in the tem into context. community. The two scenarios currently in-

10 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 voked — “cold start” and “hot start” — lead to very different observable properties. For in- stance, in the cold start scenario, gas accretion reaches a runaway stage, producing shocks that ra- diate away all the incoming en- ergy, resulting in a low tempera- ture, low luminosity planet. In the hot start scenario, the shocks are radiatively ineffective, result- ing in a planet with both high lu- minosity and high temperature. Of course, intermediate models are possible with initial entropy varying between these two ex- treme cases. The only way to de- termine the initial conditions is, therefore, to study young planetary systems. directly imaged in the next few years — es- Figure 5. pecially by instruments such as GPI, and its Previous directly-imaged exoplanets had lu- An artist’s visualization European cousin: the Spectro-Polarimetric of the Jupiter-like minosities only compatible with those pre- High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) exoplanet, 51 Eri b, seen dicted by the hot start scenario, whereas 51 at the Very Large Telescope. in the near-infrared Eri b is faint enough to be reproduced by light that shows the both scenarios. The cold start scenario is usu- The direct exoplanet imaging community is hot layers deep in its ally associated with the core accretion for- undertaking large-scale campaigns, which atmosphere glowing mation mechanism, in which a core is built will hopefully lead to additional discoveries through clouds. Because of its young from planetesimal agglomerations followed that will place our own Solar System in the age, this young cousin by rapid gas capture. This mechanism is the context of other extrasolar systems. Studies of our own Jupiter is adopted hypothesis to explain the formation such as these are the key to understanding still hot and carries of the gas giants in the Solar System. There- the formation of giant planets, their evolu- information on the fore, 51 Eri b might have formed like Jupiter, tion, and, ultimately, how they interact with way it was formed ~20 with modest extensions to the classical core potentially life-bearing terrestrial planets, million years ago. accretion model; like the pebble accretion which will undoubtedly be discovered with Image credit: Danielle Futselaar & Franck Marchis which facilitates planet formation at larger future instruments. (SETI Institute). distances than the typical 1-5 AU from the central star. Julien Rameau is a postdoctoral fellow at the In- stitut de Recherche sur les Exoplanètes, Université Tip of the Iceberg? de Montréal. He can be contacted at: [email protected] 51 Eri b is the first exoplanet found by GPI. It belongs to a low mass, low temperature, Robert De Rosa is a postdoctoral fellow at the Uni- methane dominated, close-in category to versity of California, Berkeley. He can be contacted which earlier instruments were not sensi- at: [email protected] tive enough to detect in previous exoplanet searches. We hope it represents the tip of the iceberg of extrasolar planets that will be

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 11 July 2015 Valerie Rapson

First Likely Planets in a Nearby Circumbinary Disk

Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) observations of V4046 Sagittarii provide the first strong evidence for ongoing planet formation around a young nearby binary star with a circumbinary disk. The GPI data reveal a distinct double ring structure within the disk that roughly corresponds to the orbital positions of Uranus and Saturn in our own Solar System. The discovery provides tests of giant planet formation theories.

Stars form when a region within a giant molecular cloud, composed mostly of hydrogen gas but including more complex molecules and dust, begins to gravitationally collapse. As it does so, individual clumps start to spin up and flatten out, creating young protostars sur- rounded by disks of gas and dust. It’s within these circumstellar disks that planets, like those in our Solar System, will form.

To better understand how planets form, we can study the nearest young stars known to host planet-forming disks. The proximity of these star-disk systems allows astronomers to more easily image the disks and search for evidence of planet formation. In the not-too-distant future, we may even begin to directly image the newborn planets themselves.

Planet Formation Around Nearby Young Stars Planet-forming circumstellar (protoplanetary) disks have been observed to extend out to ra- dii of a few hundred astronomical units (AU) and are composed of a vast array of molecules,

including diatomic hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), water (H2O), and various carbon- bearing compounds found in our Solar System — such as hydrogen cyanide (HCN), cyanide

(CN), and ethynide (C2H). Protoplanetary disks also contain carbonaceous and silicate dust

12 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 grains, which coagulate over time, grow in formation around young nearby stars within size, and settle towards the disk midplane. ~ 30 AU, where we can search for evidence for gas giant planet formation on scales Present theories hold that giant planet for- similar to that of our Solar System. We do so mation in disks likely occurs via one of two by focusing on a handful of solar mass stars mechanisms: core accretion or gravitational within ~ 300 light years (ly) of Earth that are instability. In the core accretion scenario, surrounded by, and actively accreting mate- ice-covered dust particles collide and stick rial from, gas-rich circumstellar disks. together, growing into ever-larger rocky bodies; planetesimals form from this buildup of rocky material, and their collisions eventu- Target: V4046 Sagittarii ally build super-Earth-mass planetary “cores.” Our team has been closely scrutinizing one Such massive cores can then rapidly collect such star-disk system: V4046 Sagittarii (Sgr). gas from the disk to form giant planets. Lying at a distance of just ~ 240 ly, V4046 Sgr In contrast, the gravitational instability theo- is an extraordinary binary star system sur- ry holds that planets form when a perturba- rounded by a massive disk of gas and dust tion in the disk causes a large amount of disk roughly 0.1 solar mass. With an age of only material to collapse and form a planet essen- ~ 20 million years, this system provides us tially all at once. Hence, this rapid process is with an excellent opportunity to search for similar to that by which a young central star evidence of recent or ongoing planet for- forms from its birth cloud. mation. The V4046 Sgr system also offers an intriguing twist: Any planets spawned in Under either scenario, once a massive planet its disk would have to orbit twin stars (both forms, co-orbiting material either accretes only slightly less massive than our Sun) sep- onto the planet or is accelerated radially arated by just ~ 9 solar radii. in the disk via spiral density waves, which cause material approaching them to speed Interestingly, the V4046 Sgr disk exhibits a up — until they reach the perturbed regions, central clearing out to ~ 30 AU (i.e., ~ 1/2 arc- where they slow down and linger. These second) at submillimeter wavelengths. The Figure 1. Artist’s impression of mechanisms result in ring-like or spiral struc- presence of this inner “hole” suggests that one or more planets may be forming close the the binary star- tures in the disk characterized by sharp ra- disk system V4046 Sgr. to the central stars, carving out an opening dial gradients in both surface density and Image credit: NASA/ particle size. within the disk (Figure 1 shows an artist’s JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle rendering of the V4046 Sgr disk based on (SSC). The predicted spiral and ring structures have indeed been observed in disks around young stars in nearby star-forming clouds with telescopes such as the Sub-Millimeter Ar- ray (SMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter Ar- ray (ALMA), and with near-infrared cameras on 8-meter-class telescopes, such as Subaru and Gemini. However, these observations are typically probing planet formation around young stars at orbital separations many times that of the gas giants in our Solar System.

Our team is interested in studying planet

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 13 Figure 2. Left: Total polarized intensity of the V4046 Sgr disk. Right: Total polarized intensity multiplied by r2,to account for dilution of incident starlight.

these data). smaller) dust grains in the disk. Our data consist of images through the J- and K2- On the other hand, our analysis of infrared band filters, at wavelengths of 1.24 and 2.25 observations from the Spitzer Space Tele- microns, respectively. scope and Herschel Space Observatory sug- gests that the apparent “hole” at submillime- Figure 2 shows the resulting images of the ter wavelengths is actually partially filled with disk at J-band, which (thanks to the proxim- gas and dust. Since probing this inner-disk ity of V4046 Sgr and the exquisite resolution material directly requires imaging at resolu- and sensitivity of GPI) probe down to ~ 7 AU tions near the diffraction limit of an 8-meter from the central binary at ~ 2 AU resolution. telescope, we turned to the Gemini Planet The left image is the total polarized intensity; Imager (GPI) on the Gemini South Telescope the right image is total polarized intensity to achieve this extreme resolution. multiplied by the square of the deprojected distance from each pixel to the star (r2) — to GPI Imaging of V4046 Sgr account for the fact that the light reaching the disk from the central star drops off as 1/r2. GPI is a state-of-the-art, near-infrared instru- ment dedicated to directly detecting and The GPI images reveal a distinct double ring characterizing young, self-luminous exo- structure, with a bright inner ring centered at planets and the dusty circumstellar disks in ~ 14 AU, and an outer halo extending out to which they form. GPI combines high-order ~ 45 AU. Two gaps appear in the disk: One be- adaptive optics, a diffraction-suppressing tween the two rings at ~ 20 AU, and one in- coronagraph, and an integral field spectro- terior to the bright ring. These gaps roughly graph to obtain near-diffraction-limited im- correspond to the orbital radii of Uranus and ages. GPI allows us to observe these targets Saturn in our own Solar System. The gap/ with unprecedentedly short integration ring structure revealed by the GPI images of times of just a few minutes. V4046 Sgr hence provides the first strong evi- dence for ongoing planet formation in a cir- We obtained Early Science observations cumbinary disk within giant-planet-hosting of V4046 Sgr with GPI in April 2014, using regions similar to that of our Sun’s. its coronagraphic + polarimetric modes to trace light scattered off micron-sized (or

14 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Dust Segregation In addition, this evidence for the presence of young Further evidence for planet-building activity giant planets around in the V4046 Sgr disk comes from a compari- V4046 Sgr helps set essen- son of the GPI and SMA data (Figure 3). GPI tial constraints on simu- imaging traces light scattered off small dust lations aimed at under- grains, which appear to prevail within 10-45 standing the conditions in AU of the central stars. Data from the SMA which giant planets might traces thermal emission from larger centime- form around binary star ter- to millimeter-sized dust grains, revealing systems — a theoretical emission concentrated in a ring whose inner question that is presently edge lies at ~ 30 AU. Thus, the GPI data con- of intense interest, given firm the earlier Spitzer and Herschel spec- the Kepler Mission’s detec- troscopic observations, which show that the tion of roughly 40 circum- gap seen at submillimeter wavelengths is in- binary planets to date. deed partially filled with small dust particles. Figure 3. Modeling of planet formation in disks sug- What’s Next? Comparison of SMA gests that we should see this phenomenon data (blue shading The Gemini Planet Imager has provided us of grain size segregation. When a gas giant and yellow contours) with our first close look at some likely dy- planet forms in a disk, it creates local den- and GPI J (green) and namic episodes in planet building activity sity waves that trap larger (mm- to cm-sized) K2 (red) data. within a circumbinary disk orbiting a young particles outside the planet-forming regions binary star system — especially in regions of the disk. Smaller (micron-sized) grains where gas giant planets are known to form freely pass through these pressure traps, re- around our Sun. Our team has subsequent- sulting in strong dust particle size gradients. ly obtained new time allocations with GPI Our comparison of the GPI and submillime- to obtain deeper imaging of the V4046 Sgr ter imaging of the V4046 Sgr disk provides disk. With these new observations, we hope vivid evidence in support of these so-called to image the massive planets we suspect are “dust filtration” models by describing the forming, or have recently formed, in the disk. structure of a circumbinary disk captured in We also plan to image other nearby young the process of actively forming planets. star-disk systems, to look for ring/gap fea- In summary, our GPI images appear to pro- tures similar to those detected by GPI in the vide powerful tests of two planet-forming V4046 Sgr disk. Any additional results will processes in the V4046 Sgr disk: (1) That further our understanding of the planet for- one or more young giant planets following mation processes taking place in circumstel- orbits similar to those of Saturn or Uranus lar disks orbiting young, Sun-like stars; they have simultaneously carved out a disk gap might also teach us something new about and an inner disk hole; and (2) these gas-gi- how gas giant planets formed in our own so- ant planets have generated large-scale den- lar neighborhood. sity waves, resulting in dust particle filtration and segregation by size. Together these re- Valerie Rapson recently completed her PhD at sults offer two possible ways giant planets the Rochester Institute of Technology. She can be can form in debris disks around young, Sun- reached at: [email protected] like stars.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 15 April 2015 Benoit Neichel RCW 41: Dissecting a Very Young Cluster with Adaptive Optics High-resolution observations of a Galactic star-forming region with the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS), in union with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI), have shed new light on how star-forming regions, and the young stellar objects within them, evolve. Figure 1. The different All stars are born from an original collapsing cloud of gas and dust. When the core of one mechanisms that may of these molecular clouds becomes unstable, it collapses and forms protostars. When the trigger the formation protostars are massive, they achieve temperatures hot enough to ionize the surrounding of a new generation gas (mostly hydrogen) causing it to glow; we call this glowing stellar nursery an emission of stars at the edges of nebula or HII (H+) region. an ionized (HII) region (from Deharveng et al., 2010). Stellar Nurseries Massive stars form HII regions that expand in the surrounding medium at supersonic speeds. Once a sphere of ionized gas is far from the newborn stars, the outer boundary (the ionization front) slows to subsonic speeds. Continued expansion of material ejected from the nebula builds pressure behind the front, before it breaks through as a shock. This second wave of expansion at the edges of the HII region can create a layer of cold neutral material, which accumulates between the ionized and the shock fronts. This layer may become unstable and form a new generation of stars through different physical mecha- nisms. Those mechanisms are summarized in Figure 1. These include small- and large- scale instabilities (denoted as 1 and 2, respectively; also called “collect and collapse”); in- teraction with a pre-existing turbulent media (3; leading to the formation of pillars); and interaction with pre-existing clumps (4).

16 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 One of the key questions in this field of re- Figure 2. search is what is the causal link between JHK color-composite the first generation massive stars (the ones image of RCW 41 associated with the large HII regions) and observed with GeMS the young (possibly second-generation) at Gemini South. stars observed at the edges of HII regions? Dissecting the young clusters that formed at the edges of HII regions is therefore an important step to refine our knowledge on star-formation mechanisms.

The Sharp Gemini Eye about 20 milliarcseconds. This combination of Studies of young star clusters are still lim- new instruments is perfectly suited for young ited. Young, recently formed stars in clusters cluster studies, as it provides a uniform and are shy, and usually hide inside a heavily ob- unprecedented spatial resolution spanning scured and dense environment. High spatial a large portion of the young cluster’s angular resolution in the near infrared (NIR) is need- extent. ed to resolve individual members and detect the fainter ones. Back in 2013, during the GeMS science veri- fication period, we pointed this high-reso- The Gemini South telescope offers one of the lution machine toward RCW 41, a Galactic most advanced adaptive optics (AO) suites ionized region located in the Vela molecular currently available on a large telescope. ridge. We used three filters (J, H, and K ), com- Among these capabilities, the Gemini Multi- s bined to produce the image shown in Figure conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) 2. In this image, the resolution is ~ 0.1 arcsec- delivers a uniform, almost diffraction-lim- ond, and quite uniform over ited image quality at near- the field. At the cluster’s dis- infrared wavelengths over an tance, ~ 4,200 light years (1.3 extended field-of-view of 2 kiloparsecs), the field covered arcminutes across. by the image represents ~ 1.5 GeMS utilizes five artificial -la light years (0.5 pc), with a res- ser guide stars, up to three nat- olution corresponding to 130 ural guide stars, and multiple astronomical units. This is 5 deformable mirrors (DMs) that to 10 times better than previ- are optically conjugated with ously available images, which the main atmospheric turbu- were obtained in seeing-lim- lence layers. This results in an ited circumstances. AO corrected field that is 10 to To highlight the gain in reso- 20 times larger than previous lution brought by GeMS/ generations of AO systems. GSAOI, Figure 3 compares GeMS works in conjunction the seeing-limited images Figure 3. with the Gemini South Adap- GeMS/GSAOI (top) and obtained with the Europe- tive Optics Imager (GSAOI), SofI (bottom) images of an Southern Observatory’s which covers an 85” × 85” field- the central part of the large-field infrared spectro- RCW 41 cluster observed of-view with a plate scale of graph and imaging camera in H-band.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 17 SofI (Son of Isaac) on the New Technology Telescope, we have identified a total of 80 Telescope, and the new GeMS/GSAOI imag- Young Stellar Object (YSO) candidates based es in H-band. The region shown here is the on their unusual red colors. Indeed, these cluster’s center, where the stellar density is recently-formed stars are still embedded in the highest. GeMS/GSAOI not only resolves native material, and circumstellar emission many more stars, but by concentrating the from each star’s disk and envelope dominate light over smaller areas it also enhances the the spectral energy distribution. sensitivity and limiting magnitude in this The signature of their youth, however, re- crowded region. Determining the stellar veals itself at longer wavelengths, where content of young clusters (by resolving their their spectrum significantly deviates from a individual members and gaining access to Figure 4. pure photospheric emission. Constructing their faintest ones) is a key in understanding Magnitude-color color-color diagrams, we find that YSOs tend the process of their star formation. diagram for all stars to cluster in a specific region, making them detected in the RCW 41 easy to identify. cluster. Stars marked Young Stellar Objects: with a blue polygon or a Identification and Cluster Age Once identified, these candidate YSOs can red square are the YSOs. then be used to estimate the age of the clus- The pre-main sequence Determination ter. Indeed, in the absence of proper mo- models used to estimate tion studies, or spectroscopic information, the cluster’s age are Based on the photometry derived from the distinction of true low-mass members shown with the solid GeMS/GSAOI, complemented by images color lines. taken by NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space from the contaminating field stars projected along the line of sight is difficult. We there- fore used these YSO sources, which are more likely associated with the cluster, to derive an approximate age of the region.

Age determination was done through the color-magnitude diagram shown in Figure 4. For each YSO, we track its position with respect to pre-main sequence models. The different models assume different colors for different YSO age. This allows us to basically assign an age for each object. Of course un- certainties are large. However, this exercise allowed us to find evidence for the cohabita- tion of two potentially distinct populations of YSOs.

More specifically, we found that two-thirds of the YSOs were young, with a mean age lower than 3 million years (Myr), while one- third had a mean age of about 5 Myr. This might be the sign of an evolutionary star formation sequence (progression) at work in this region.

18 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Evolving Stars? should be a fair representation of the under- lying Initial Mass Function (IMF). To test whether different evolutionary stag- es are present in the cluster, we looked at The IMF is a fundamental parameter to the spatial distribution of these two pos- characterize cluster properties, and various sible populations. From this it appears that theories of star formation predict different the “red,” highly embedded, and probably outcomes for its overall shape. However, as younger, YSOs are mainly distributed around for the age, deriving a mass for each star is the northwest region (top right), while the an indirect process, and many uncertainties “blue,” and probably older, population is may add up along the way. preferentially located toward the southeast We derived the IMF of the young cluster, Figure 5. (bottom left) region. This distribution seems which is presented in Figure 5. Among the to indicate the presence of an age gradient Mass distribution of the first interesting features is that we can de- young cluster forming diagonally across the image, and where the tect and study stars down to a mass limit at the edge of the RCW denser cluster region would be younger of ~ 0.01 solar mass — only 10 times the 41 HII region. Thanks to than the blue sub-cluster region. mass of Jupiter! Only the gain in sensitivity the gain in resolution and sensitivity brought We also found that one of the bluest massive brought by GeMS/GSAOI allows us to reach by GeMS/GSAOI, masses such a low mass limit in a cluster as distant stars, located in the southeast sub-cluster, is down to 0.01 solar mass likely the ionizing source of the region. This as RCW 41. are probed in this cluster. star probably is the one that origi- nally lit up RCW 41, and has al- ready cleaned up its environment. On the other hand, moving toward the dense cluster region, the pres- ence of a dense clump of molecu- lar gas has been detected, a sign- post of active ongoing high-mass star formation. This suggests that star formation progresses toward the clump and could have been triggered by the interaction of the ionized region with the clump.

Cluster Mass Distribution To go one step further, we derived the mass and mass distribution of the dense cluster, formed at the edge of the RCW 41 HII region. The stars in this region have roughly the same age and metallicity. In addition, since the effects of stel- lar and dynamical evolution are minimal in young clusters, the ob- served present day mass function

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 19 Brown Dwarfs an ideal complement to the radio observa- tions delivered by the newly commissioned Objects below 0.08 solar mass, (i.e. below Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). the hydrogen-burning limit) are are known Combining near-infrared, with radio wave- as brown dwarfs. We demonstrate here that lengths — at a similar spatial resolution GeMS/GSAOI opens the way for studies of — opens the way for strong synergies and brown dwarfs, and brown dwarf formation breakthrough discoveries. processes in distant clusters. We are also exploring the need for new data In particular, there have been several pro- reduction tools specifically designed for this posed mechanisms to explain the origin of new generation of AO systems. As shown in brown dwarfs — such as through turbulent this paper, many uncertainties in the data fragmentation, disk fragmentation, ejection still exist, and error bars need to be carefully of newly formed fragments in multiple sys- treated. Finding ways to reduce these error tems, and photoevaporation. All of these bars will allow us to push the limits of tech- scenarios may predict a different brown nology, better constrain theoretical models, dwarf fraction. For instance, isolated brown and improve our understanding of those dwarfs may be the remains of prestellar rich and complex star-forming regions. cores, after strong ultraviolet emission from nearby massive stars photoevaporated their accretion disks. We therefore expect a higher Benoit Neichel is an instrument scientist at Labo- brown dwarf ratio for clusters hosting mas- ratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille. He can be sive stars. reached at: [email protected] RCW 41 does host many massive stars, al- Other members of the team are: Manash R. Sa- lowing us to compare its brown dwarf frac- mal, A. Zavagno, and A. Bernard from Labora- tion with other known clusters hosting mas- toire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France; H. sive stars, such as the Trapezium region in Plana from Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, the Orion Nebula. From this comparison we Brazil; and T. Fusco from ONERA, France. found that the fraction of brown dwarfs in RCW 41 was actually significantly smaller than that of the Trapezium. This is also true for another distant cluster — the one in M16, the Eagle Nebula. This might indicate that different processes are at work to shape the low-mass IMF and the brown dwarf content.

Coming Next Accurately deriving the stellar content of young clusters is a challenge for which GeMS/GSAOI is certainly a unique facility. These capabilities offer us an opportunity to pin down each of the least massive stars present in distant clusters and push the observational limits one step further. The resolution provided by GeMS/GSAOI is also

20 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Nancy A. Levenson Figure 1. Color composite image of the central region of NGC 253, from Flamingos-2 images using the filters J (blue), H (green), and Ks (red). Large amounts of dust Science Highlights completely obscure this region in optical images. (Inset) Color composite This 2015 Year-in-Review highlights the innovative science being image of the core region of NGC 253, from T-ReCS done by the Gemini user community. mid-infrared images using the filters Si-2 (blue), [NeII] (green), and January 2016 Qa (red). The nucleus candidate IRC appears as the brightest object in Unshrouding the Buried Nucleus of a Nearby Starburst Galaxy the infrared. NGC 253 (Figure 1, and featured on the cover of this issue) is famous among astronomers as the nearest spiral galaxy hosting a nuclear star- burst. The concentrated activity and associated dust, however, obscure the center. Guillermo Günthardt (National University of Cordoba, Ar- gentina) and collaborators have now used Gemini infrared observations to identify the galaxy’s nucleus. They conclude that the brightest near- and mid-infrared source (a stellar super- cluster) marks the nucleus, rather than a radio source that astronomers had previously identified.

The team used new multi-wavelength near-infrared images and spectrosco- py obtained with Flamingos-2 on the Gemini South telescope, combined with archival multi-band mid-infrared images obtained using T-ReCS (Ther- mal-Region Camera Spectrograph) on

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 21 Gemini South. The stellar supercluster, iden- In this work, the team began with the Infrared tified as the nucleus and kinematic center of Medium-Deep Survey, based on data from molecular gas rotation, is almost coincident Maunakea telescopes including the United with the symmetry center of the galaxy’s in- Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Canada- ner bar. This infrared core (IRC) is also the pri- France-Hawai‘i Telescope. Color selection re- mary source of the starburst-driven outflow. vealed high-redshift quasar candidates, and Both the IRC and the nuclear disk are offset observations of this newly-discovered quasar with respect to the galaxy’s stellar bulge, using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph which implies that the central gas reservoir on Gemini South confirm its redshift and and new star formation are decoupled from identity spectroscopically (Figure 2). older Galactic structure. This single source and six additional candi- The complete results are published in The As- dates from the same survey are consistent trophysical Journal, and more information with limited contributions to reionization with detailed images is posted on the Gemini from the faint end of the quasar luminosity website. function; thus, 90% or more of the ionizing flux must come from other sources.

Discovery of a z ~ 6 Quasar: This is the first Korean publication as part Rethinking Reioniation Sources of the Gemini Partnership, and was led by in the Early Universe Yongjung Kim (Seoul National University), Myungshin Im (Principal Investigator; Seoul Korea’s first result as a limited Gemini partner, National University), and colleagues. A trans- the discovery of a faint quasar at a redshift of lation of the Korean press release is posted on z ~ 6, sheds new light on the sources of reion- the Gemini website, and the full publication ization energy about a billion years after the appears in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Big Bang.

Ionizing the neutral atoms of the intergalactic Figure 2. A Massive Black Hole in a medium requires significant sources of ener- This GMOS-S spectrum Possible Relic Galaxy of the newly-discovered gy, from either galaxies’ stars or their accret- z~6 quasar confirms its ing central black holes (as quasars). The new New results based on Gemini observations identity and redshift. discovery, however, ultimately suggests that of the compact, early-type galaxy NGC 1277 quasars do not contribute significantly. yield a new, lower than previously deter- mined, mass of its central supermassive black hole. The work also has more profound impli- cations for galaxy formation, suggesting that massive black holes were formed before stars came into place.

Jonelle Walsh (Texas A&M University) and collaborators used the Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) and laser-assisted adaptive optics on the Gemini North telescope to obtain high-resolution observations within about 1,400 light years of NGC 1277’s center. These provide both sensitive data within the black hole sphere of influence and simultane- ously cover extended regions where stars are

22 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Figure 3. NGC 1277 and other similar rotating, high- dispersion, early-type galaxies (red) are consistent with the M-sigma relation (left), but appear to be overluminous relative to their black hole mass (right).

more important. The team used these data October 2015 to determine a lower black hole mass — by a 9 factor of about three (4.9 x 10 MSun) — com- Best View of an Exoplanet Orbit pared with earlier findings; still the black hole Observations using the Gemini at the heart of this galaxy remains one of the Planet Imager (GPI) provide im- most massive ever measured. ages and polarization measure- This result puts NGC 1277 well above the ments of the β Pictoris (β Pic) standard relationship between black hole system that probe angular scales mass and galaxy luminosity, placing it close smaller than ever before, from to the relationship between black hole mass ground or space (Figure 4). The and bulge stellar velocity dispersion (the “M- dynamical interactions of exo- sigma relation”; Figure 3). These observations planet β Pic b and a debris disk and previous work identify NGC 1277 as a rel- offer tests of planet formation ic galaxy — one that has suffered only passive models. A further advantage of evolution (the aging of stars) over time, rather the new data is that they cover Figure 4. observations of the disk and planet together than the mergers and transformations that Polarization component result in giant elliptical galaxies in the nearby for more than a year, reducing errors in mea- (Stokes I) of the β Pictoris Universe. Such relics offer windows into the surements of their relative positions. system. A purple x marks early Universe and galaxy formation. the location of the star, Maxwell Millar-Blanchaer (University of To- blocked by a mask in Based on these results and similar exam- ronto) and colleagues use the polarimetric the observation. The ples, the authors suggest that black holes observations especially to develop a model horizontal dashed line formed first, followed by star formation, to for the disk itself. They show that the 10 - 12 shows the position angle of the outer disk. The end up with galaxies that exhibit the usual MJup planet is not aligned with the large- relations. The complete paper will be pub- scale disk. Ten new astrometric measure- planet is separated from the star by 0.4 arcseconds, lished in The Astrophysical Journal, and a ments, obtained over a 14-month period visible on the right side of preprint is now available. and combined with earlier data, yield the the image, offset above planet’s orbital properties and the mass of the dashed line. This

the central star accurately: 1.61 ± 0.05 MSun. image is 1.3 arcseconds on a side. January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 23 Figure 5. (above) The planet, orbiting at roughly the same Specifically, the researchers detect the dou- This color-magnitude distance as Saturn in our Solar System, can ble subgiant branch in the cluster’s center, diagram of globular account for some dynamical features of which indicates either multiple episodes of cluster NGC 1851’s the disk, such as its warp. However, it can- star formation or multiple populations hav- crowded center combines not fully account for several other features. ing distinct metal composition, rather than near-infrared observations In particular, β Pic b is not responsible for a single uniform population of stars. Turri et obtained using GeMS/ clearing the region to the observed inner al. measure the main sequence well below GSAOI at Gemini South and optical data from the disk edge at 23 astronomical units. Anoth- its turnoff, for 3.5 magnitudes. A feature

Hubble Space Telescope. er planet could be the cause, but it would observed around KS = 20.5 is the “main se- Red dots mark the main have to be very faint to avoid detection so quence knee,” which may be useful to deter- sequence turnoff and far. Complete results are published in The mine the cluster’s age, independent of dis- the main sequence knee, Astrophysical Journal; part of a press release tance and reddening estimates. around K = 18 and 20.5 s also appears on the following Gemini web- magnitudes, respectively. The delivered image quality is near Gemini’s site, which provides a summary of the work, diffraction limit, with an average measured including additional illustrations and an full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 0.09”. animation of the data showing the planet’s Figure 6. (below) Thus, the team is able to distinguish indi- motion (viewable here). This small extract from vidual stars in the very crowded field, which the full 83-arcsecond would overlap and contaminate each other field-of-view illustrates The Deepest Ground-based the quality and depth of in seeing-limited observations at lower spa- the images from Gemini. Photometry in a Crowded Field tial resolution (Figure 6). Paolo Turri (University Turri and his collaborators have similar of Victoria, Canada) and GeMS/GSAOI observations of additional colleagues have used globular clusters, which will yield more gen- the Gemini Multi-con- eral conclusions; these will help to guide jugate adaptive optics observing and data analysis strategies for System (GeMS) with the the next generation of extremely large tele- Gemini South Adaptive scopes. This work on NGC 1851 is published Optics Imager (GSAOI) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and an to produce the most introduction is available on the Gemini web- accurate and deepest site (view here). near-infrared photom- etry from the ground of Water Vapor in a Terrestrial a crowded field. Their K s Planet Region measurements of the Galactic globular clus- Astronomers have detected significant water ter NGC 1851 reach the vapor in the planet-forming region around precision and depth of the young star DoAr 44. The central star and optical observations ob- development of its planets have not yet fully tained using the Hubble cleared the surroundings, leaving an inner Space Telescope, and ring and an outer disk around a gap that ex- the resulting combined tends radially for 36 astronomical units (AU). color-magnitude dia- DoAr 44 is unusual compared to similar so- gram reveals physical called “transition disks” in showing evidence characteristics of the for water; yet by later stages of evolution, as cluster (Figure 5). young stars with disks, water vapor emission

24 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 is common. The inner ring of DoAr 44 may be replenished by material from the outer disk, accounting for the large water content it maintains compared with simi- lar objects. Alternatively, planets may af- fect the chemistry in this region where terrestrial planets develop.

The warm (450 K) water arises in the in- The eccentric structure of the emitting disk ner ring, appearing in emission at mid-infra- Figure 7. is consistent with the system being shaped Continuum-subtracted red wavelengths (Figure 7). The data were by planets like those in our Solar System, TEXES spectrum (black) obtained at a spectral resolution R ~ 80,000 at similar distances from the parent star. and dominant “hot” using the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spec- model fit (blue), which Many previously discovered systems have trograph (TEXES), a visitor instrument on the yields the temperature required unusual planets — super-sized Gemini North telescope. Colette Salyk (Na- (450 K) and location Jupiters far from the disk’s center — to cre- tional Optical Astronomy Observatory and (0.3 AU) of the ate the observed structures. GPI’s excellent Vassar College) and collaborators used the emitting water vapor. resolution and contrast allow probing more A “warm” component kinematic characteristics of the spectrally distant Sun-like systems than previously (red) is required to resolved emission to determine the location possible. GPI provides spectra along with account for additional of its origin, at 0.3 AU. Avoiding destruction measurements at longer the images, and the results are consistent of water molecules in this region close to wavelengths. The sum with a significant water ice component. The the stellar source requires material in the re- of the models is plotted complete work has been published in The gion — either gas or dust — as protection in gray. Astrophysical Journal Letters, volume 807, against the star’s strong radiation. The paper page L7. appears in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, volume 810, page L24.

July 2015 Figure 8. This GPI image of A Solar System Analogue, in HD 115600 in the H Formation band (around 1.6 μm) clearly shows the Observations using the Gemini Planet Imag- disk that resembles er (GPI) reveal an analogue of our own Solar the Kuiper belt of our System at an early stage of evolution. The de- own Solar System. The bris disk, which resembles the Sun’s “Kuiper coronagraph blocks the belt,” belongs to the young star HD 115600 light of the central star (at the position of the — a star in the right environment (a massive cross). The diamond OB association) to represent the site of the marks the disk’s center. Sun’s formation, with similar mass (1.4 to 1.5 M ). Thayne Currie (National Astronomi- Sun Finding the Outer Edge cal Observatory of Japan) and collaborators of Young Stars Near the have discovered this extrasolar debris disk in direct imaging (Figure 8), and they use the Galactic Center images and spectral information from GPI The very center of the Milky Way Galaxy to determine its properties and possible un- contains a number of massive stars — de- seen planets. spite either the inhospitable environment

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 25 for their formation in the vicinity of a super- or by merger with another white dwarf. Be- Figure 9. massive black hole or the short time avail- sides being useful to account more fully for The NIFS image in the K band of one of nine able for them to relocate there after forma- the end stages of stellar evolution, under- regions analyzed. tion elsewhere. New observations, obtained standing the SN Ia mechanism is extremely The field measures 3 using the Near-infrared Integral Field Spec- important in their application to cosmology arcseconds across and trometer (NIFS) with laser and natural guide as standard (or standardizable) light sources. is located about 0.4 star adaptive optics, rule out at least one pc from the Galactic formation scenario (infall of a young stel- center. Symbols indicate spectral types: lar cluster) and help set the physical scale violet triangles (early); (0.5 parsecs (pc) or 1.6 light years) for the green circles (late); extent of in situ formation. black x’s (ambiguous); and a foreground star Morten Støstad (University of Toronto) and (red square). colleagues take advantage of NIFS’s spatial resolution, along with the simultaneous spectroscopy it provides, to classify the observed stars (Figure 9). The distribution of early-type (young) stars exhibits a sharp decline at a radius of about 0.5 pc, which is not a limit due to the observations.

This is the first spectroscopic study to sig- nificantly support earlier photometric ob- servations of this effect. The finding is not consistent with the relocation of the stars Two results find evidence for both of these from elsewhere. Instead, it suggests that SN Ia formation processes in different exam- they were formed in place, within the very ples. In both papers, led by Yi Ciao (Califor- center of the Galaxy. They could either mark nia Institute of Technology) and Rob Olling the outer edge of a gaseous disk’s stability (University of Maryland), observations from or define the properties of colliding clouds Gemini and other ground-based facilities that formed the stars. provided key pieces of evidence that helped The observed distribution of older (late- the teams classify the supernovae as SN Ia. type) stars is consistent with earlier results NASA’s Swift satellite triggered the first re- showing a power law distribution that sult. The ultraviolet emission it detected breaks at a similar radius, though lacking from the supernova was initially bright but the very sharp drop-off the young stars decayed rapidly, which supports theoreti- show. Full results appear in The Astrophysi- cal models of the “single degenerate” origin, cal Journal, volume 809, number 2. where the companion star survives its col- lision with ejected material producing this Catching Supernovae emission. The Gemini observations were in Advance part of the Large and Long program led by Mansi Kasliwal (also California Institute of The earliest observations of supernovae can Technology), and designed to obtain rapid distinguish among their formation mecha- spectroscopy using the Gemini Multi-Object nisms. For Type Ia (SN Ia) events, the progen- Spectrograph (GMOS). itor white dwarf may be pushed to become a supernova by accretion from a companion

26 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 In contrast, the second paper shows three Figure 10. examples with no evidence for interaction Light curves of with a surviving companion. This supports three of the doubly- a “double degenerate” origin, which leaves degenerate SNe no material for subsequent interaction (Fig- Ia, from the Kepler ure 10). NASA’s Kepler satellite provided the satellite (filled points and error bars), first observations of these supernovae. The compared with ground-based spectra, using GMOS on both models (blue lines). Gemini North and South, showed that the hosts are passive galaxies at redshifts around 0.1. The two papers appear in the journal Na- ture, volume 521, pages 328 and 332.

April 2015 Clarity and Change in an Explosive Stellar Outflow The outflow that emerges from the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 (OMC1) offers a rare op- portunity to observe a catastrophic episode in a massive star-forming region. The out- flow’s large scale, and the common dynami- cal age of its many high-velocity knots (in the region known as the “Orion Fingers”), point

to an explosive origin. Observations using Figure 11. the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive op- The outflow of the tics System (GeMS), and the Gemini South “Orion Fingers” is Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI), have pro- evident in this high- vided the sharpest views ever obtained of resolution image. The leading fingertips the large region, nearly reaching the dif- appear in [Fe II] (cyan), fraction limit with a resolution of 0.08 to and the trailing 0.1 arcsecond. fingers are evident in molecular hydrogen The narrow-band images show [Fe II] emis- emission (orange). sion at the fingertips, where the material Comparison with is ionized and excited at the leading shock earlier observations fronts (Figure 11). Additional shocks excite shows the motion and molecular hydrogen in the wakes of the morphological changes trailing regions. John Bally (University of of the emitting knots. Colorado) and collaborators directly mea- sure the motion of specific fingers in the outflow and their morphological changes. They also compare the current data with earlier observations, especially those ob-

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 27 tained using adaptive optics (Altair/NIRI) at The cluster was discovered as part of the Gemini North. They find proper motions up Stromlo Milky Way Satellite Survey, using to 300 kilometers per second (km/s). the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Survival of these knots requires that they This work surveys large areas of the sky and have densities much larger (factors of 103 or uses processing algorithms to search pref- greater) than the ambient medium through erentially for old and metal-poor overdensi- which they propagate. Numerical simula- ties. Director’s Discretionary Time using the tions reproduce the overall structure and Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) kinematics of a moving knot. The authors on Gemini South rapidly enabled deep fol- suggest that stellar merger events could low-up observations to yield a significant produce such outflows, while ejecting mas- color-magnitude diagram of the cluster. The sive stars from their birthplaces main sequence is well defined to magnitude Additional images are posted at the Gemini 26.5 (Figure 12), containing candidate sub- website. Full results appear in Astronomy and giant and main sequence turnoff members, Astrophysics, volume 579, page 130. but no clear subgiant or red giant branches.

Full results are posted in a preprint and will A New Low-luminosity be published in The Astrophysical Journal. A Cluster in the Outskirts of the Gemini press release is also available. Milky Way Figure 12. New discoveries and detailed measurement Color-magnitude of the stellar populations in the outer reach- diagram of all stars es of the Milky Way reveal the history of our within 1.3 arcminutes Galaxy. Dongwon Kim (Australian National of the Kim 2 cluster center, from GMOS-S University) and collaborators contribute to observations. The our understanding by reporting on the dis- main sequence is well- covery of a faint, low-density stellar cluster defined, and the two in the constellation Indus. Called Kim 2, the best-fitting isochrones cluster, located in the outer Milky Way halo, are overplotted (blue is 10 times more distant than typical globu- lines). Filled red circles lar clusters and shows signs of having lost mark candidate subgiant and main significant mass. sequence turnoff The lower luminosity (M ~ –1.5) and higher members, and those V metallicity ([Fe/H] ~ –1.0) compared with labeled 1 and 2 are An Extremely Massive also located near the typical Milky Way globular clusters suggest cluster center. that Kim 2 was previously located in a dwarf Black Hole in an Extremely Milky Way satellite galaxy and only recently Distant Quasar accreted into the halo of our Galaxy. These Infrared observations with the Gemini North characteristics are similar to other clusters as- telescope have confirmed a 12 billion solar sociated with the Milky Way’s dwarf satellites mass black hole in an exceptionally bright and tidal streams. In addition, as a low-mass quasar in the very early universe. The team cluster, the relaxation time (~1.1 billion years used Gemini, as well as telescopes from (Gyr)) is much shorter than its age (~11.5 around the world, to discover and character- Gyr), providing sufficient time for dynamical ize this extremely massive black hole at red- mass segregation, which is observed.

28 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 shift z = 6.3, only about 875 million years after troscopic observations. The near-infrared the Big Bang. observations from both the Gemini Near- Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) on Gemini This result requires extremely rapid growth North, and the Magellan Telescope, show of the black hole. While black holes of com- the emission of ionized magnesium (Mg II), parable mass have been observed — after which was used to estimate the black hole they have had billions of years to gradually mass from scaling relationships applicable gain mass over cosmic history — this quasar to quasars (Figure 13). In addition to stand- challenges astronomers to determine how ing out for its extreme black hole mass, this such a huge object could exist so early in quasar, SDSS J010013.02 + 280225.8, is ex- the history of the Universe. Mass accretion ceptionally luminous, having a bolometric at the Eddington limit, over most of cosmic luminosity greater than 1048 ergs per second; time, is required to reach the large mass at it is in fact the most luminous one known at this early epoch. z > 6. This work is published in Nature (Vol. Color selection in optical and infrared imag- 518, p 512). ing surveys identified the target as a candi- date high-redshift quasar, which the team, Nancy A. Levenson is Deputy Director and Head led by Xue-Bing Wu (Peking University, Chi- of Science at Gemini Observatory. Her office is at na), followed with multi-wavelength spec- Gemini South headquarters in La Serena, Chile. She can be reached at: [email protected]

Figure 13. The spectrum of quasar SDSS J010013.02 + 280225.8, obtained using the Gemini Near- Infrared Spectrograph combined with observations from the Magellan Telescope, appears in red; gaps are regions of low sky transparency. The optical spectrum (from the Large Binocular Telescope; black) and noise (magenta) are also plotted. The inset shows the three components of the fit to a portion of the near-infrared emission. The ionized magnesium (Mg II; blue) emission is used to estimate the extremely large black hole mass of 12 billion times the mass of the Sun. Figure credit: Nature.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 29 Contributions by Gemini staff On the Horizon A summary of instrumentation and development initiatives and progress throughout the year — with a look to Gemini’s future.

January 2016 Vendor Quotes Received for New Gemini South Laser On October 2nd, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy issued a request for quotes (which were due in early December) for a new laser at Gemini South. The quotes are now in, and we intend to announce vendor selection in early 2016 — after approval by the National Science Foundation. The new laser will dramatically improve the reliability of the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) at Gemini South. It should also allow us to reduce staff efforts in the daytime, prior to laser runs, and at nighttime, during laser runs.

Contract Signed for Natural Guide Star Sensor Upgrade The Australian National University and the Association of Universities for Research in As- tronomy have signed a contract for the Natural Guide Star New Generation Sensor (NGS2) and begun its design and construction; we expect delivery in 2016. The NGS2 upgrade will allow the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) at Gemini South to uti- lize guide stars four times (1.5 magnitudes) fainter than the current system.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of sky coverage versus Galactic latitude after the NGS2 up- grade (blue lines) compared to the current system (red lines) for 1, 2, and 3 guide stars (dotted, dashed, and solid lines, respectively). On average, the upgrade will increase sky coverage by about 2.5 times at the Galactic poles and to about 80% in the single guide star case for targets within 50º of the Galactic plane.

GHOST News During the first week of December, the Gemini High-resolution Optical Spectrograph (GHOST) team completed the first of a two-part project milestone: the Critical Design Review. The design team — led by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) and

30 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 partnered with both Canada’s National Re- source Council-Herzberg (NRC-H) and the Australian National University — expect to complete the Critical Design Stage with the second part of this project milestone in early March 2016.

In order to reach this milestone, the GHOST project has continued to move forward in 2016, despite a couple of setbacks:

First, we lost NRC-H’s project manager, a key player who moved on to another opportu- nity outside the organization. The existing NRC-H team has since absorbed his respon- sibilities, with some additional help from within their department.

Second, in mid-2015, the AAO experienced trouble securing an acceptable optical fiber from its vendors — until one of them finally delivered a usable fiber. With the fiber deliv- Adding to this progress, the Gemini Board ered, construction of the prototype fiber as- Figure 1. has recently endorsed the decision to locate sembly is underway. We still believe that it Sky coverage vs. GHOST at Gemini South, where preparations Galactic Latitude is possible to manufacture a better fiber, so have begun to receive the instrument. We with NGS2 on AAO is continuing to work with the vendor expect delivery near the end of 2017. After Gemini South. to optimize the product. While this proto- testing and commissioning, we plan to have type fiber assembly is not on the project’s GHOST ready for use by semester 2018B. critical path, it remains a high-risk design item until completed and tested. Gemini Instrument During the December 2015 Critical Design Review, an external committee and the Feasibility Studies Gemini GHOST internal team reviewed the In April 2015 Gemini funded a number of inde- spectrograph optics and system software pendent and non-competitive Gemini Instru- and completed designs for the Cassegrain ment Feasibility Studies (GIFS). We designed unit, fiber assembly, and slit-viewing assem- these studies to help Gemini understand the bly. Early in March 2016 a second review will science, technical requirements, and costs as- cover the spectrograph’s optomechanical sociated with creating the next Gemini instru- design and electronics, as well as the ther- ment (Gen4#3) — while complying with a set mal enclosure design and anything else that of top-level Science and Technology Advisory still needs addressing from the first review. Committee guiding principles.

In other news, NRC-H expects the imminent GIFS resulted in four outstanding studies for arrival of GHOST’s first engineering grade CCD Gemini: GEONIS, GMOX, MOVIES, and OCTO- detectors that were ordered in the first quar- CAM. (A summary of these projects appear ter of 2015. This CCD will be characterized and in the July 2015 news items below). Each integrated in preparation for the arrival of the represents a different view of what is pos- science grade detectors in third quarter 2016. sible for Gemini’s next instruments. Howev-

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 31 With a total budget of $200,000, we were looking for compelling proposals request- ing up to the whole budget, as well as those asking for minimal, or even no funding from Gemini. Each selected project will receive up to one night (10 hours) of observing time to be used for demonstrating the scientific po- tential of the upgraded instrument.

At the time of writing, we have received let- ters of intent and are excitedly anticipating Figure 2. er, the studies’ outputs are not instrument receiving proposals by the December 17th Presentation by design for build proposals; Gemini will use deadline. We expect to quickly evaluate pro- Antonio de Ugarte the GIFS studies to help inform the require- posals and begin one or more instrument Postigo on the ments that will go into the call for Gen4#3. upgrade projects in 2016 Q1. For further an- OCTOCAM GIFS study during a review of all The community can now read the final re- nouncements visit this site. submitted Feasibility ports and presentations from each team Study reports in late and provide comments and pose questions September 2015. to: [email protected]. Before com- October 2015 pleting the set of requirements for Gen4#3, Gemini will consider any comments received GMOS-South New CCDs: by December 22, 2016; we particularly wel- Performing Entirely to come feedback on the science requirements, Specification technical capability, and design aspects. Soon after the commissioning of the new After January 22nd, Gemini will consider Hamamatsu CCDs in the Gemini Multi-Ob- the community’s input, along with recom- ject Spectrograph at Gemini South (GMOS-S) mendations from our advisory committees, in August 2014, we noticed that when ob- to produce the Gen4#3 Request for Propos- serving in any of the binned readout modes, als (RfP). We are working towards a 2016 Q2 saturated pixels produced a decrease of release of the RfP. Please visit the Gen4#3 counts with respect to the bias level in neigh- home page for the latest information. boring pixels. This effect, known as “banding,” spanned the entire width of the amplifier, Instrument Upgrade — and while it did not destroy information, it Small Projects Proposals rendered data reduction very cumbersome. Making matters worse was the saturation Gemini is committed to keeping our opera- of a bad column on amplifier number 5 (on tional instrumentation competitive and to CCD2, the middle one in the focal plane) that serving the needs of our user community. affected the entire amplifier. The Observatory also has a responsibility to provide major upgrades to the telescopes When a team of Gemini instrument scien- and their adaptive optics systems and asso- tists and engineers investigated the issue, ciated instrumentation. To this end, in Octo- they identified the root cause of the prob- ber we issued a request for the community lem as the Astrophysical Research Cameras to send us small-scale instrument upgrade (ARC) controller video boards. Representa- proposals as part of our Instrument Up- tives from ARC suggested that we try a new grade Program. revision of the video boards they now had

32 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Having learned from these Figure 3. experiences, we are build- Before (left) and after ing the GMOS-North Ham- (right) data from amatsu CCD system with GMOS-S showing the new video controller the banding present before the fix (left) boards to avoid the band- and a different field ing problem entirely. with bright stars after the fix (right) with no banding present. available. After significant lab testing, we verified that these boards would solve the July 2015 problem, but required that we modify our software to be compatible with them. As of GRACES: August 25th, we have fully installed and in- More Efficient than Ever Figure 4. tegrated these new boards and eliminated Comparison of the The Gemini Remote Access to CFHT’s ESPa- GRACES sensitivity as the banding effect. DOnS Spectrograph (GRACES) began its measured for the 2-fiber The screenshots shown here (Figure 3) pres- first scheduled observing runs in 2015B. spectroscopic mode in May 2014 (dashed line) ent examples of standard star fields with (See page 58 for a more complete overview and in June 2015 (solid bright stars using 2 x 2 binning before and of the GRACES story.) The team made sev- line). The sensitivity is after the board replacement. In the left im- eral improvements that make GRACES both defined as the magnitude age, the banding effect is visible as dark more efficient and easier to operate. To im- of an object that would lanes on the saturated stars. In the right prove efficiency, the team recoated some provide a signal-to-noise image, taken after the fix, the effect is com- key optics and redesigned one element that ratio of 1 after an hour pletely eliminated and saturated stars do was vignetting the optical path). As a result, of integration time. This figure illustrates not produce the dark lanes. GRACES’s efficiency is improved by an aver- GRACES performances age of roughly 20% towards the red part of Since the controller has changed, we are improvements in the red the spectrum (see Figures 4 and 5). now re-characterizing the entire detector part of the spectrum. system, including re-measuring gains, read noise, and full well for all modes. Meanwhile, GMOS-S has resumed normal operation. We found the primary science mode read noise to be unchanged at ~ 4e-. A nice additional benefit of this upgrade is that the full well increased by ~10% with respect to the previ- ous value.

A second problem involving a charge trans- fer smearing effect, most noticeable during Figure 5. long nod and shuffle sequences, has gone Greg Barrick (Canada- away on its own. We have made several ef- France-Hawaii Telescope) forts to reproduce the problem, but the ef- installing the GRACES fects have remained elusive, so we continue receiver module in the to monitor. However, the bottom-line result ESPaDOnS spectrograph, is that the Hamamatsu CCDs in GMOS-S are incorporating some of now operating at full capacity and are ready the recently improved to deliver high-quality data to our users. optics.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 33 Meet the Four Gemini The astronomical landscape in the coming Instrument Feasibility Studies decade will be dominated by wide-field synoptic surveys, and GEONIS is driven to In April 2015, Gemini launched four inde- both classify and study transient events pendent instrument feasibility studies to over a wide wavelength range in a single help determine requirements for the next exposure. It also has broad reach across a new Gemini instrument (also known as Gen- variety of observational disciplines — from eration 4#3, or Gen4#3) after GHOST. Each characterizing transiting exoplanets to pin- team’s study provides Gemini with a collec- ning down the location of near-Earth aster- tion of science cases, top-level science and oids, high redshift galaxies, and stars of un- instrument requirements, and correspond- usual metallicity. ing feasible instrument designs. The study is being led by Nick Konidaris and The team’s efforts were guided by a set of managed by Dan Reiley, both at the Califor- principles provided by the Science and Tech- nia Institute of Technology. Main collabora- nology Advisory Committee (STAC) [view- tors include astronomers at the University able here] that describe very high-level re- of Colorado Boulder, Penn State University, quirements for the Gen4#3 instrument. Now University of Toronto, the Jet Propulsion completed, the four studies will aid Gemini Laboratory, and the U.S. National Optical As- in creating the requirements for Gen4#3. We tronomy Observatory. expect to release a Request for Proposals to For more information on the GEONIS study, design and build the instrument in the first please contact: half of 2016. Nick Konidaris (PI): [email protected] Each of the four feasibility study teams pre- Dan Reiley (PM): [email protected] sented their ideas and work in progress at the Toronto 2015 Future & Science of Gem- MOVIES ini Observatory meeting. The meeting also allowed each team to interact with many The Montreal-Ohio-VIctoria Echelle Spec- Gemini users and included a panel discus- trograph (MOVIES) instrument concept is sion that reflected on the coming needs for a broad bandwidth, moderate resolution Gemini’s next new instrument. (R ~3 K – 10 K) dual arm optical and near- infrared (NIR) Echelle spectrograph that si- Summaries of the four team instrument multaneously covers at least 0.40 – 2.40 µm. studies follow: It is supported by a rapid acquisition camera operating simultaneously in the optical and GEONIS near-infrared. Key additional features include The Gemini Efficient Optical and Near-infra- rapid target acquisition, high stability, and a red Imager and Spectrograph (GEONIS) in- multi-band acquisition and guiding system. strument concept is an efficient two-channel (See Figure 6.) spectrograph and imager with wavelength The primary science motivation for MOVIES coverage spanning 0.4 to 1.6 microns (µm). includes spectroscopic follow up of the tran- It is designed from the ground up as an sient phenomena uncovered by facilities like observing system that uses new detectors, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Addi- atmospheric dispersion correction, and a tional science drivers include studying the slit-viewing camera to maximize science composition of stars and extrasolar planets collecting time and minimize overhead. and planetesimals.

34 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 The study is being led by Alan McConnachie and managed by Les Saddlemyer, both at the National Research Council of Canada Herzberg. Main institutional collaborators include Ohio State University and the Uni- versité de Montréal.

For more information on the MOVIES study, please contact: Alan McConnachie (PI): [email protected] Les Saddlemyer (PM): [email protected]

GMOX The Gemini Multi-Object eXtra-wide-band spectrograph (GMOX) instrument concept is a wide-band (R ~ 5,000) spectrograph covering the entire optical/near-infrared spectrum accessible from the ground — from the U-band to K-band (0.32 – 2.4 µm) The study is being led by Massimo Robberto Figure 6. via five spectroscopic arms (Figure 7). Using (Space Telescope Science Institute; STScI) Schematic of the MOVIES existing micro-electromechanical systems and managed by Stephen Smee (Johns Hop- instrument layout. technology, GMOX plans to exploit the ex- kins University). Main institutional collabo- ceptional image quality of the Gemini Multi- rators include the STScI and the Rochester conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS). Institute of Technology.

Prime GMOX science Figure 7. drivers include prob- Optical layouts ing the high redshift of a preliminary universe from 6 < z < 10 concept for through deep spectros- GMOX. (a) copy of lensed galaxies GMOX on and the re-ionization Gemini, shown epoch. With its large beneath an ISS-sized cube observable wavelength for scale. (b) range and capability of Schematic operating in crowded of a 3-arm fields, GMOX can also arrangement for study ultraviolet/opti- GMOX. cal spectral features in a variety of regions, rang- ing from star formation at redshifts 1 < z < 3 to stellar clusters in the Milky Way.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 35 For more information on the GMOX study, The study is being led by Antonio de Ugarte please contact: Postigo (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalu- Massimo Robberto (PI): [email protected] cia; IAA-CSIC) and managed by Pete Roming Stephen Smee (PM): [email protected] (Southwest Research Institute) and Chris- tina Thöne (IAA-CSIC). The project is being OCTOCAM coordinated from the IAA-CSIC, with main institutional collaborators at the Southwest The (OCTOCAM) instrument concept is an Research Institute, Fractal SLNE, and George 8-arm, multi-band imager and spectro- Washington University. graph, covering 0.37 - 2.35 µm with R~3,000- For more information on the OCTOCAM 4,000 and high time-resolution capabilities study, please contact: (Figure 8). The team will also study the po- Antonio de Ugarte (PI): [email protected] tential science cases opened by including an Pete Roming (PM): [email protected] additional integral field unit and a spectro- Christina Thöne (PM, Spain): [email protected] polarimetric mode in the instrument design. See page 31 for the most recent updates on OCTOCAM’s key science driver is the study GIFS progress in 2015. of astronomical transients. Subsecond time resolution observations could allow the identification and characterization of extra- solar planets and their atmospheres through transits, the study of the internal structures of stars through asteroseismology, the study of the Solar System’s history through trans- Neptunian object occultations, massive stel- lar explosions and outbursts, supermassive black hole environments, and the physical properties of jets.

Figure 8. A 3D view of the OCTOCAM concept.

36 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Contributions by Gemini staff Figure 1 (top). Image from the west- pointing cloudcam, showing a moonlit UKIRT and a nice meteor in the background. Cloudcams are used as part of the Base Facility Operations at Gemini North. News for Users Figure 2 (bottom). Not what you want to A summary of news of relevance to Gemini’s users during 2015. see. This image from the north-facing cloudcam, on a night in mid-November, January 2016 shows the Keck and IRTF domes in the foreground, with approaching cirrus in Operating Gemini North from the Base the background. Gemini North is now operating every night from the base facility on North A’ohoku Place in Hilo. We’ve been work- ing for more than a year to make this possible, developing and implementing new monitoring and control capabili- ties; gradually we confined the night staff to the summit control room, to gain confidence that we hadn’t missed anything before relocating to sea level.

Once we had cameras and microphones up and running on the observing floor, and a reliability upgrade to the mirror covers, we removed the need for night staff to be in the dome; we could now open or close the dome or telescope mirror covers remotely. As evaluating weather was the most challenging task for the night staff, we in- stalled additional weather sensors outside the building to monitor sky conditions, precipitation, and summit-level fog (Figures 1 and 2). Software enhancements ensure that the dome will close automatically should the network link from Hilo go down while the dome is open, and we then encounter precipitation. In November, we started trial operations from the base (Figure 3), with the help of members of the day crew who stayed late in case of prob- lems at startup. After a month of trials, which resulted in a lot of useful feedback, we were ready to “fly solo.”

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 37 many delicate, micron-scale adjustments in this system, and a magnitude 8.4 earthquake within 100 kilometers of the telescope site was more than sufficient to take the laser’s alignment back to “square one.”

To fix the laser, we essentially had to start from scratch. We adopted a systematic ap- proach, implementing some enhancements that will make for much quicker recovery, especially should we suffer a recurrence (which we all, of course, hope we will not). By late November it became clear that we would lose the second GeMS run; now we’re Figures 3. From here on, if you come observing at certain that we will not be operating GeMS Gemini staff operating Gemini North (e.g., for a Classical or Prior- in January either. We’re now focusing on Gemini North from Hilo. ity Visitor run), you can expect more air to protecting the February run. Hopefully a breathe than you would have if observing at final concerted push will get us back to 30 the summit. Watts of light at the sodium wavelength with the steady performance that had been We’re now working on the plan to repeat this achieved before the earthquake. operation at Gemini South. In the interests of efficiency, we’ll “copy and paste” as much as possible from what we did in the north. Mirror Coatings North However, as this remains one of the single and South biggest projects ever undertaken at Gemini Both Gemini telescopes were shut down South, we don’t expect to relocate to its base for maintenance in September and Octo- facility in La Serena until late in 2016. See the ber (North and South, respectively). At both article on Base Facility Operations starting sites, a variety of maintenance tasks were on page 54. scheduled, with the biggest single task be- ing the M1 (primary mirror) recoating at GeMS Laser and the Gemini South (Figure 4), followed by the M2 September Earthquake (secondary mirror) at Gemini North. Numer- ous preparations, documentation revisions, The large earthquake that hit Cerro Pachón and rehearsals were performed in antici- in September 2015 put the complex GeMS pation of the Gemini South event, and the “sodium” laser totally out of alignment (see team safely and successfully completed this news item below under October 2015); the delicate and complex primary mirror coat- quake also caused us to lose the first of three ing process. Particular attention was given GeMS runs scheduled in Semester 2015B. to a collaborative cross-training program The GeMS laser works by generating two in- with other AURA centers in Chile. frared laser beams at different wavelengths, The beneficial effect of a fresh coating on mixing and amplifying these in a nonlinear M2 is clearly seen in the GMOS-N zero points crystal, and producing a signal at the sum shown in Figure 5. In Chile, the coating of the of the two input frequencies. The resulting Gemini South primary mirror was a team ef- beam is then directed into beam-transfer fort, with staff from both Gemini sites, Cerro- optics for launch onto the sky. There are Tololo-Inter-American Observatory and the 38 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Figure 4. telescope. The results were excellent. Rehearsal for the Gemini South Also in the south, we continued to modify M1 recoating: the cooling arrangements for the top-end Preparing to control computer; the warmer ambient lift the dummy temperatures on Cerro Pachón have caused mirror. problems with condensation on the cooling lines in the past, causing us to lose telescope time due to high humidity. The modifications are designed to increase the flow rate to the top end, thus enabling the temperature of the cooling water to be reduced. Despite the Visiting Instruments loss of summit access for three days due to Gemini continues to welcome visiting in- a spate of bad weather, we got back on sky struments. After an absence of a few years, on schedule — a considerable achievement Phoenix (high-resolution near-infrared spec- reflecting the planning and effort that the Figure 5. trograph) returns to Gemini South in 2016A. GMOS-N g band zero whole team puts into these shutdowns. Also in the south, we will host a first run for point as a function of the dual-band Differential Speckle Survey In- time. The various mirror GMOS-S CCDs update strument (DSSI). Watch the Call for Proposals coatings and CCD installations are marked Work is complete on two major quality issues pages for these and future opportunities. with vertical dotted with the GMOS Hamamatsu CCDs at Gemini You may also have noticed that GRACES, lines. Far right is the South (see a detailed review of progress on our high-resolution spectroscopy capability recent uptick due to the this issue starting on page 32). The “satura- realized by sharing CFHT’s ESPaDOnS Spec- recoating of M2. tion effect,” which produced band- ing artifacts on images with satu- rated pixels, was solved by a video board upgrade. Charge smearing effects, which we had also identi- fied as an intermittent (and hard to reproduce) problem, were not convincingly identified; we could not pinpoint a particular cause in our investigation inside the detec- tor cryostat, but the readout cable on the affected chip was replaced just in case. The smearing effect is now at a level so low that it will not affect any conceivable science ob- servation. We have released an up- date to Gemini’s Image Reduction and Analysis Faciity (IRAF) which is capable of handling data from the new video boards and includes significant improvements to the GMOS data reduction examples.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 39 trograph, is now listed with the other facility whether it should become better integrated instruments on the web pages, where pre- into the Observatory’s observing systems. viously we listed it as a “visitor” instrument. We’re now in that latter stage wth GRACES, In reality, GRACES is neither, but it has some running the instrument for real and gauging of the properties of both. GRACES relies on demand and success. a sharing agreement with CFHT, so we nec- If you want to see how GRACES performs on essarily schedule it in a limited number of a range of targets, refer to the sample data blocks per semester; we cannot fully inte- Figures 6-7. taken in the run-up to the 2015B semester. grate it into the queue as we do with facil- (upper): HIP 74432, You can get preview images of the reduced a solar-analog star ity instruments. In that respect, it is not dis- spectra in Figures 6-7 and here. observed with GRACES similar to instruments such as NIRI and NICI, in 1-fibre (object- which have relatively limited usage and are only) mode. (lower) not always installed on the telescope. For comparison, October 2015 Feige 66, an O-type The project which developed GRACES was spectrophotometric not tasked to deliver a facility instrument, standard star Fast Turnaround Expanding to but to give us a reasonably sensitive high- observed in the same Gemini South mode. Both spectra resolution spectroscopy capability; we have resolving power would then monitor its performance and Active since early 2015 at Gemini North, Fast in excess of 65,000. usage for about a year before deciding Turnaround (FT) observing has been a suc- cessful addition to the list of proposal modes sup- ported by the Observa- tory (see feature article on page 50). Principal Investigators have taken their refereeing duties very seriously to date, and programs have gen- erally achieved a good completion rate. Partici- pants have also reported finding the process en- gaging and educational. We will soon extend the FT program to Gemini South. The first proposal deadline was scheduled for the end of October, for observations to begin in December 2015. All future proposals received will go into a common pool, and we don’t expect to en- force a particular split of allocations between the two telescopes; up to 20

40 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 hours of observing time will be awarded to Figure 8. FT programs on each telescope each month. Hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena Yet More Weather (left to right) in the Hawaiian environment, Both Gemini North and Gemini South were characteristic of the closed by midyear snow. In the north Central active Central Pacific Pacific, Hawai’i was like the target in a shoot- hurricane season of ing gallery, as hurricane season generated 2015. Image from more than 10 named storms to date (Figure Maunakea Weather Center, obtained on 8). Thankfully, there were no direct hits, but August 29, 2015. significant side effects included long periods of fog and precipitation at the summit, not to mention a fairly continual stream of flash flood warnings at sea level. Figure 9. In August, Southern Hemisphere winter Snow clearing after winter weather at Cerro Pachón deposited large storm at Cerro Pachón. amounts of snow and ice on the summit, forc- ing an evacuation; as a precaution, Gemini South switched to generator power that day. After several more days of bad weather, copi- ous amounts of snow continued to accumu- late on the access roads and the summit itself.

When the storms abated, hard work by AURA Shared Services cleared the roads and al- lowed observers and crew to get back to the telescope after a week (Figure 9). By that time, however, almost all of the observatory’s fuel had been consumed; and without the possibility of getting a fuel truck to the site, there was no alternative but to completely times and not good for our observing sta- shut-down all systems. tistics. However, the great amounts of snow Excellent teamwork between the engineer- melt water did a lot of good for the region, ing groups allowed for a quick and safe and despite some local damage, was grate- switch off of all equipment. Last to be shut fully received. down was, of course, the generator, with just 10 hours of fuel remaining! In total, the ob- Gemini South and the Chilean servatory ran on generator power for over Earthquake nine days, consuming almost 15,000 liters of diesel fuel. The following week, with assis- As you’re probably aware, Gemini South was tance of the grader and motor digger, a fuel affected by the large (magnitude 8.4) earth- truck made it to the site, all systems were re- quake which struck Chile on September 16th. started, and normal operations resumed. At the time of the quake, Gemini South was closed due to sever weather (see news item All in all, Gemini South was closed for more above). Since systems were powered up, the than two weeks, a rare occasion in recent January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 41 Figure 10. secondary mirror system effectively acted as Data from the Gemini a seismometer. Figure 10 shows the second- South secondary mirror ary oscillations in response to the early arriv- sensors at the time of ing P waves, followed some 20 seconds later the September 16th by the major shock of the main quake. earthquake.

sulting work was released in the early part of 2015, and Dynamic Structures was awarded the consulting contract in March.

A Dynamic Structures team visited Mauna- kea in late April to review the shutter system enclosure. They also took metrology data on the arch girders and top shutter in various Figure 11 July 2015 positions. (above, right). A fully assembled, Guarding Against Future Flamingos-2 Stand-down spare shutter gearbox Successfully Completed at Gemini North. Shutter Failures Redesigned torque As Gemini Observatory and its users are both In March, Flamingos-2 was given a preven- arms are at the top of painfully aware, Gemini North lost a large tive maintenance stand-down, in which we the assembly. amount of time in 2013B and 2014A due fixed the gate valve baffle issue and installed to two dome shutter failures. Since those a spectroscopic K-band filter. The gate valve events, we have carried out internal engi- baffle, stuck in place since late 2014, is now neering studies, which resulted in a redesign working well, returning the thermal radiation of parts of the shutter drive gearboxes, and from the gate valve to nominal levels in spec- have procured spares (Figure 11) to speed troscopy mode (Figure 12). the recovery process from a future similar Figure 12. failure, should one occur. “Before and After” images of Also, we have engaged Flamingos-2’s an external contractor to thermal background carry out a completely in spectroscopy independent study of mode, with the the dome and its mecha- baffle not correctly nisms, to ensure that in place (left panel) nothing is missed. Re- and correctly in quest for Bids for this con- place (right panel).

42 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Figures 13-14. Top: A final mask design overlaid over a GMOS-S pre-image. The large green rectangle displays the detector area where spectra are recorded. The thick red polygon indicates the field-of- view within which slits (small yellow vertical bars) may be placed. The spectral footprints are shown as filled horizontal rectangles. Bottom: The user interface that controls which elements are shown in the pre-image display. It also shows the number of valid acquisition stars and issues warnings if spectra are truncated by the finite detector geometry.

Mask-making Software After the installation of the new red-sensitive Updated Hamamatsu CCDs in GMOS-S, which have dif- ferent geometries and pixel scales compared Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS) is in high to the detectors in GMOS-N, we recognized demand at both Gemini telescopes. Princi- that the GMMPS source code had significant pal Investigators individually design the MOS shortcomings that prevented its use for cre- masks for each science program using the ating masks for both GMOS instruments. In a Gemini Mask Making Preparation Software concerted effort, the code was recently made (GMMPS). Once checked, the physical masks less instrument-dependent. This fix also paves are precisely cut using a laser milling machine the way for mask creation for the MOS mode in Chile (shared between Gemini, Cerro-Tolo- of the near-infrared Flamingos-2 instrument, lo International Observatory, and the South- commissioning of which will begin this year. ern Observatory for Astrophysical Research). At the same time, all user interfaces were

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 43 made more transparent and user friendly. A holes. The power spectrum image shows series of internal consistency checks mini- fringe power at 45 individual baselines; mizes the number of submitted faulty mask these correspond to each pair of holes in designs, and a comprehensive user manual is the mask and reveal the surprising degree available. All in all, this amounts to a signifi- of inherent order in the image. cant overhaul for GMMPS, making it a more effective and user-friendly tool for mask cre- Data Center Re-engineering ation (Figures 13-14). Relatively unseen by the outside user, the summit data centers have been re-engi- neered over the past six months. The new data centers are split into hot and cold zones, producing significant energy sav- ings. They also foster greater sustainability and cybersecurity.

Destructive Weather Event in Chile Figure 15. Non-redundant Masking Near the end of March, Chile suffered a freak GPI NRM “snowflakes” with GPI storm that dumped many inches of rain on observed during the the high deserts and caused major flooding commissioning time Commissioning of the Gemini Planet Im- and destruction right down to the coast. Cer- in May 2015. Left: Raw ager (GPI) Non-Redundant Mask (NRM) ro Pachón was one of the affected areas. As data frame. Right: mode was scheduled for late March, and a result, Gemini South lost power, communi- Power spectrum. coincided with the horrendous flooding cations, and nights of telescope time. Thanks event described at right. Because of this, to the quick and effective work by the engi- no data were taken. Since this mode was neering staff, the telescope was back on line to produce some of the highest-contrast very shortly after the storm passed. observations with GPI, we rescheduled a commissioning night in May. The team, Washing the Gemini South led by Peter Tuthill and Alexandra Green- baum, visited the telescope and obtained a Primary Mirror night’s worth of useful data, which they are A few times annually, the Gemini South pri- now working to reduce. mary mirror is subjected to an in situ wash in which the mirror, left in place on the tele- Future users will need to become familiar scope, is cleansed with specialized detergents with the “snowflake” patterns produced to remove dust particles. The latest wash oc- when the seeing is good and the NRM curred in April; we show a picture of the pro- mask is in place; two samples of this effect cess here (Figure 16). An in situ wash requires appear in Figure 15. that we very carefully seal the bottom end of For the technically inclined, the raw image the telescope so that the instruments, science taken through the mask can be thought of fold mirror, etc. do not get wet. as an interferogram — a pattern formed If you’re wondering whether we do this in from fringes containing high spatial reso- Hawai‘i also, the answer is no, and it’s because lution; these cross the Airy disk diffraction of geology. The wind-blown dust on Cerro pattern caused by the individual circular 44 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 (both North and South) domi- Figure 16. nated the proposal statistics. Washing the Gemini South Primary Mirror Welcome, Korea, and we hope in situ. this relationship is long and fruitful. See page 22 in Science Highlights for Korea’s first results as a limited Gemini partner.

Gemini IRAF Software Package Released Pachón is granitic, while that on Maunakea is light basalt. Granitic dust on the Gemini A new version of the Gemini Image Reduc- South primary does not fully come off with tion and Analysis Facility (IRAF) software package (v1.13) for data reduction has been CO2 cleanings, whereas basaltic dust on the Gemini North primary does. Therefore, given released (January 29, 2015) and is available. only carbon dioxide cleaning, reflectivity of This full release supersedes the recent com- the Gemini South primary would decrease missioning and patch releases. more quickly than Gemini North’s. Of special note, this latest release will sup- port GMOS-S Hamamatsu data with quan- tum efficiency corrections, provide new and April 2015 improved tasks in support of GMOS integral field unit data reduction, and offer better First Korean Time on Gemini handling of variance and data quality planes throughout the GMOS package. With Korea now Gemini’s first limited-term Figure 17. partner, the Korea Astronomy and Space Sci- The new package is available for download The first Korean ence Institute (KASI) has taken on the job of on this web page. observing team at coordinating the vetting of proposals from Gemini North, shown all over Korea and producing “miniqueues,” here while making which will be executed in pre-scheduled observations in March. blocks of time on both Gemini North and Gemini South.

The Korean community showed great inter- est in observing at Gemini North and a total of seven Principal Investigators or Co-Inves- tigators, plus three KASI staff, helped with implementation of the programs during an intense week carried out in Priority Visitor observing mode (see Figure 17). The science is varied — star clusters, active Galactic nu- clei, galaxy clusters, high-redshift galaxies, etc. — but mostly of extragalactic nature. The Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 45 April 2015 Gaetano Sivo, Vincent Garrel, Rodrigo Carrasco, Markus Hartung, Eduardo Marin, Vanessa Montes, and Chad Trujillo

News in Adaptive Optics at Gemini South Adaptive optics (AO) activities conducted at Gemini South have not only improved image quality but also resulted in some exciting science obtained with the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) coupled with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager. Future AO activities are expected to expand dramatically at Gemini South once the Natural Guide Star system for GeMS is upgraded and a more reliable laser is installed.

Adaptive optics systems rely on laser guide star wavefront sensors (LGSWFS) for high-order measurements of distortions to starlight caused by Earth’s atmosphere. Of course precise alignment of the system is critical for optimal performance. During the winter (Southern Hemisphere) telescope shutdown of 2013, the AO group decided to realign the CCD and lenslets assembly of the LGSWFS; we had calculated that the system’s collimator and lenslets were offset by 1.8 centimeters, which corresponds to a misconjugation of about 51 (km) on the sky.

A Puzzling Image Quality Issue with Canopus Post shutdown, the laser beacon showed a Rayleigh pattern on the LGSWFS that appeared physically impossible. This first led the AO team to believe that a pixel was swapped inside a quadcell subaperture used to center the laser beam to a certain spot. Even if this were the case, the reconfiguration of the WFS introduced unwanted side effects, so the AO team reverted very quickly to the original configuration, which required two additional days of work on the telescope.

46 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 In early 2014, during the first run of Semes- ter 2014A, our team discovered that stars im- aged with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI) were elongated especially at the edges of the field, yielding poor perfor- mance (up to 250 milliarcseconds). One of the issues uncovered was an incorrect pro- cedure used for saving Zernike coefficients (that control the figure of the Gemini South 8.1-meter primary mirror (M1)). Figure 1 il- lustrates the image elongation issue.

Once the M1 model was fixed, we still had a somewhat intermediary situation, where elongation was present, but to a lesser ex- tent. After a few simple tests, we determined that the LGSWFS system was the problem, since running GeMS with only the Deform- able Mirror (DM) conjugated to 0 km (DM0), used essentially in a ground layer adaptive optics mode, showed no signs of the elon- gation seen while running in a full MCAO mode with DM at an altitude of 9 km (DM9; Figure 2).

This indicated that we had something odd coming from the LGSWFS that was being offloaded to the DM when conjugated to an altitude of 9 km (DM9). During two further runs in 2014 (May and June), we acquired some science data using a software patch that removed a semi-static shape on the DM9. As several optical phenomena could cause this issue, the AO team decided to shutdown the GeMS system in concert with the general telescope shutdown and pro- Finding the Source, and a Figure 1 (Top). ceed with a more thorough investigation Solution, for the Elongation Example of the inside Canopus — the AO bench that is the elongation issue present heart of GeMS. During August 2014, we removed Canopus on GeMS/GSAOI images. To maximize the effectiveness of this shut- from the telescope and installed it in the Figure 2 (Bottom). down, we approached previous GeMS AO instrument laboratory on Cerro Pachón. Af- GeMS/GSAOI image team members François Rigaut, Benoit ter several tests, we found that its five field stops were not properly aligned with the using a ground- Neichel, and Marcos van Dam, all of whom layer adaptive optics rest of the optical train, thus vignetting the agreed to assist the current AO team in diag- reconstructor. nosing and correcting the issue. beam. The vignetting pattern was different for each of the five WFS, which explained the unusual semi-static pattern on DM9.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 47 Figure 3 (Top). The field stops are extremely difficult to to the calibration source, the field stops, Post shutdown reach, as they are enclosed in a mechani- and the CCDs. cal set positioned between two lenses, a GeMS/GSAOI image. We proceeded with this option because (1) consequence of the compact design of the it was the least invasive, and (2) the LGSWFS Canopus optical bench. Rather than adjust Figure 4 (Bottom). CCDs were the easiest elements to move. the field stops, the other option we iden- Performance results We then remounted Canopus on the tele- tified was to realign the CCD behind each achieved using GeMS/ scope and waited for the telescope shut- GSAOI. ~75 mas in the LGSWFS and the calibration source. Doing down to end. whole field-of-view. this, we realized, would restore alignment During the first post shutdown GeMS observing run (Septem- ber 2014), we confirmed that the realignment of the CCDs had in- deed removed the elongation is- sue (Figure 3). Since then, several successful science runs with the system have produced excellent results. Figure 4 illustrates the lev- el of performance that the system can now provide.

Future Plans for GeMS A New Natural Guide Star WFS System The AO team at Gemini, with col- laborators from the Australian National University, is currently working on upgrading the Natu- ral Guide Star Wave Front Sensor (NGSWFS) system (see page 30 for an update). This upgrade will allow the system to use natural guide stars as faint as magnitude 17.5 — a gain of about two magnitudes over the current NGSWFS. This gain will increase AO sky coverage by a huge margin, while opening up many extragalactic science op- portunities; up to 50 percent of the sky around the Galactic poles would be available with at least one guide star.

48 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 A More Reliable Laser Gaetano Sivo is an adaptive optics science fel- low at Gemini South. He can be reached at: The laser currently used in Gemini South [email protected] is a 50 Watt (W) sodium laser created by Vincent Garrel is an adaptive optics and GeMS non-linearly combining two infrared beams instrument scientist at Gemini South. He can be inside a crystal. Since its infancy, the laser reached at: [email protected] has required a well-qualified technician to perform the necessary (and precise) optical Rodrigo Carrasco is an assistant astronomer at alignments. After the unfortunate passing of Gemini South. He can be reached at: [email protected] our colleague, and friend, Vincent Fesquet — who was the laser specialist at Gemini Markus Hartung is an adaptive optics scientist at South and the keystone of the laser’s main- Gemini South. He can be reached at: tenance — Gemini has committed a huge ef- [email protected] fort to maintain the laser. This commitment Eduardo Marin is a science operations specialist included four external contractors, and uti- at Gemini South. He can be reached at: lized help from Gemini North staff. This has [email protected] allowed sustained operations, but at a level Vanessa Montes is an electronics engineer and that is somewhat disappointing. To date we GeMS Instrument Manager at Gemini South. She have not been able to maintain a laser out- can be reached at: [email protected] put higher than 35 W, even requiring the Chad Trujillo is a tenured astronomer and the cancellation of two runs over the past year. Head of Adaptive Optics. He can be reached at: The goal now is for Gemini to replace the ex- [email protected] isting laser with a more sustainable upgrade. A dedicated team is overseeing a feasibil- ity study to consider replacing the current GeMS laser with a more reliable version us- ing the most recent technologies (see de- tails on page 30).

Despite the challenges presented in this ar- ticle, the GeMS system has already produced some exciting science (see, for example, the feature article in this issue starting on page 16, and the Science Highlight about Galac- tic globular cluster NGC 1851 on page 24). This bodes well for the system’s future po- tential, especially with the improvements described here.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 49 April 2015 Rachel Mason

Fast Turnaround Program Pilot Underway The Fast Turnaround program enjoyed a successful launch and and proved popular with our user community during 2015. Work continues behind the scenes to monitor and improve the process, including the novel peer review scheme.

The Fast Turnaround (FT) program offers monthly opportunities to submit proposals for observations that will be executed starting roughly a month after each proposal deadline. To enable this rapid response, proposals are reviewed by the Principal Investigators (PIs) or designated Co-Investigators of other proposals submitted during the same cycle. The experimental scheme has been in operation at Gemini North since January of this year, ac- counting for 10% of the available telescope time for Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the Univer- sity of Hawai‘i (UH), and the rest of the US community.

The FT program moves quickly, and we are constantly gaining experience and receiving feedback. This article is therefore necessarily a snapshot of the first few weeks of the system. With that in mind, the following is an overview of the first 1.5 cycles.

Cycle Overview The first Call for Proposals, with a January 31, 2015, deadline, elicited an enthusiastic (and encouraging) response. We received 17 valid proposals, requesting 60 hours of observing time. Since Gemini dedicates three nights per month to the program, and because the weather loss on Maunakea is typically in the range of 25-30%, the response corresponds to an oversubscription factor of about three. The science areas covered by the proposals were

50 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 very diverse, as were the reasons for asking mit on time? Would the reviewers choose for FT time. Some of these include: the ”right” proposals?

• obtaining data to complete a thesis or get Reviewers are assigned eight proposals each, the last pieces of data needed to complete which they must grade from 0 (poor, do not a paper; observe) to 4 (excellent, must observe). They • compensating for an observing run lost to also must provide a brief written review and poor weather at another telescope; assess their own knowledge of the subject • conducting pilot observations or gather- area on a scale of 0 (“I know little about this ing information for upcoming standard field”) to 2 (“I work or have recently worked proposals; in this field”).

• complementing multi-wavelength moni- It’s too early for a statistically sound analy- toring campaigns; sis of the process. However, it does appear • and, finally, simply pursuing topics of inter- that most of the reviews — which are re- est to the submitting PI. turned anonymously to the PIs — have been On the other hand, the proposals were gen- thoughtful and useful. Of the handful of PIs erally short (all but one asking for less than who have filled in their feedback surveys so about six hours). Roughly 75% requested the far, 75% report that the reviews they received Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), were ”mostly helpful,” with 25% considering and most came from the mainland United them to be ”variable.” A small fraction of re- States. This is not to say that the other part- viewers essentially restated the proposals, or ners were not represented; Canada, Brazil, gave single-sentence assessments, prompt- and UH also participated in this first cycle. ing us to update the web pages with advice about how to write a helpful review. The mix of proposals received for the sec- ond call, due at the end of February, was We have also found that reviewers tend to somewhat different, with more emphasis weigh the need for rapid response more on infrared instrumentation. Slightly less highly than instructed. A main aim of the time (54 hours) was requested overall from program is to enable good science, whether the 12 proposals submitted. We speculate that means timely observations of an object that the oversubscription of the FT program that is swiftly fading, or simply taking data will eventually self-regulate, with high val- for a project that the researcher is excited ues discouraging people from submitting about right now. Whether a program is time- proposals (too much work for too small a critical is intended to be a secondary con- chance of success) and low values having sideration. We are not sure why people are the opposite effect (”free” telescope time!). putting so much emphasis on this. Perhaps they feel that, to paraphrase the feedback On Trial: of one early-career reviewer, “Time Alloca- tion Committees [TACs] are better at judg- Fast Turnaround Peer Review ing proposals than we are, so only proposals The peer review process is the most novel, that really need the FT program should go high-profile, and little-tested, aspect of the through this route.” Or perhaps there’s a psy- FT program, and we have been watching it chological component, something like “my unfold with great anticipation. program really needs to be done soon, so why should it compete against something Would there be signs of bias and unfairness that can wait?” In any case, we have updated in the system? Would the reviewers all sub-

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 51 proclaimed expertise, allows us to look for signs that this is the case.

If anything, it seems that the opposite may be happening; the lowest scores were given almost exclusively by reviewers who con- sider themselves not to be particularly fa- miliar with the subject area of a proposal. While data from more FT cycles are certainly needed to show whether this trend persists, prospective PIs may wish to ensure that their proposals are accessible to a broad, non-ex- pert audience.

Figures 1 and 2 also show that most reviewers thought most proposals were “good” or bet- ter. Some have wondered whether people will exploit the peer review system to give competing proposals unfairly low grades. We see no evidence of this so far, although we Figure 1. the instructions to emphasize that the need will continue to monitor carefully. Mean proposal grade for a quick response is not paramount. Time vs. proposal rank for the will tell if this works. Others have questioned how the quality of first FT cycle. The vertical FT proposals will compare to that of “regu- Although we don’t yet have a lot of data to bars show the range of lar” Gemini proposals. Will the people with work with, in true astronomer fashion we scores received by each the best ideas be wary of the peer review haven’t been able to resist the temptation to proposal (on a scale of system? To gauge this, the feedback survey 0-4), and the dashed start analyzing the numbers we do have. Fig- asks how the FT proposals compare to other horizontal line indicates ure 1, for instance, shows the mean proposal proposals the reviewers may have judged the cutoff score that any grade vs. proposal rank for the first FT cycle. in the past. Of the reviewers who have re- proposal must reach Clearly, the dispersion in grades is rather plied so far, all reported that the FT propos- in order to be awarded large for most of the proposals. However, als were largely similar in quality with those telescope time. a couple of things stand out. The top two they have assessed elsewhere. For an inde- proposals were uniformly recognized to be pendent (if subjective) measure of this, the very good or excellent, and the three lowest- successful proposals are also being sent to ranked proposals were not rated as excellent two (former) members of Gemini TACs. by any of the reviewers. This roughly mirrors what many people say about proposal as- Seven out of 17 proposals were accepted sessment mechanisms in general: the top during the first cycle. The FT team’s job was and bottom proposals are easy to recognize, to assess the technical feasibility of the top- while those in the middle elicit much less ranked proposals, and then figure out which agreement. ones could be accepted given all the poten- tial conflicts between a target’s right ascen- One concern that we have heard from the sion, observing conditions, GMOS gratings, community is that non-expert reviewers etc., while sticking as closely as possible to may be too easily swayed by a proposal and the peer review rankings. We were relieved unable to recognize its flaws. Figure 2, which that in the end it was feasible to select the shows the number of times each score was seven top-ranked proposals. awarded, separated by the reviewer’s self-

52 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Also on Trial: Success of Accepted Programs Once selected, we need to observe the ac- cepted programs. As one (otherwise posi- tive) first cycle participant commented, ”The verdict is out until we see whether the queue actually collects most of the data for the approved Fast Turnaround programs.” Indeed, we have to (sadly) report that the first scheduled FT observing block (March 9-11) is being wiped out, as this is written, by a blizzard so severe that even the road- clearing crew can’t reach the summit of Maunakea. FT observations remain valid for three months, but still it’s unfortunate to have lost the first block to winter weather.

At this point, you might be asking why we rethink this approach, as we see how things Figure 2. don’t simply merge the FT programs with the progress, but for now we’ll simply monitor regular queue, instead of reserving distinct Histogram of proposal and evaluate. scores, separated by nights. There are several reasons for this. reviewers’ self-declared Monitoring the FT program will be an im- First, unpredictable weather losses mean level of knowledge of portant part of our team’s work. We’ll be that observations pile up at certain right the subject area. gathering statistics, soliciting user feedback, ascensions as the semester progresses. To and also preparing reports for the oversight avoid PIs writing proposals for regions of the committee’s meetings. Once we have suf- sky that already have too many queue pro- ficient data for a reliable evaluation, we (in grams to complete, we would have to track conjunction with the oversight committees) this and make the information available for will make a decision about the program’s fu- FT PIs every month. Not only do we not have ture — should it continue in similar or modi- appropriate tools to do that, but our data fied form? Be scaled up and expanded to would always be out of date by the time the Gemini South? Or be stopped entirely? proposals were accepted. We will be sure to share our evaluation and Second, separating queue and FT programs assessment with our user communities. means that their relative priorities are clear. Meanwhile, regular updates can be found A highly-ranked FT program is not compet- on the FT blog. ing against an already-started Band 1 queue program, and vice versa.

Third, we value the transparency the pres- Rachel Mason is an associate astronomer at ent system provides. We can very clearly Gemini North. She can be reached at: state what happened to the FT programs [email protected] during their observing nights, rather than having them ”disappear” into hundreds of hours of other programs. We may have to

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 53 October 2015 Gustavo Arriagada Base Facility Operations: The Dawn of Fully Remote Operations is Here! Gemini’s Base Facility Operations are moving Gemini toward an exciting new era of fully remote operations. Figure 1. Editor’s note, this article was published prior to the successful implementation of remote Tom Cumming and operations at Gemini North in late 2015 / early 2016. Instances of future-tense statements have Dolores Coulson during been addressed where appropriate (see the update on page 37 for additional information). testing of BFO systems in the Hilo control room. Base Facility Operations (BFO) is Gemini Observatory’s large project aimed at eliminating the need for nighttime observing staff and vis- iting astronomers at the telescope facilities on Maunakea and Cerro Pachón. The ultimate goal is to allow the execution of observations completely from the base facilities in Hilo and La Serena. If you have visited either telescope, you will know that many remote functions were already possible. However, operating the telescopes at night, without anyone at the mountain facilities, still requires new capa- bilities that, once implemented, will address a long list of possible risks and safety concerns. Once done, the BFO project will assure the safety of the staff, telescope, building, and instruments, while allowing astronomers to acquire the highest quality astronomical data from base facilities without interruption.

Major Accomplishments at Gemini North Although much of Gemini North’s infrastructure was already set up to run the telescope remotely, several steps in the current opera- tions routine still required changes/upgrades before moving the night crew to the base facility.

54 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 network connection to the summit is lost. In Figure 2. addition, without any staff available to press TBAD receiver on the top buttons when something minor needs reset- ring of the Gemini North ting, BFO also needed the provision for re- telescope in Hawai‘i. mote reset capabilities.

A complex software sequence for dome clos- ing was also developed at the lowest level (Programmable Logic Controllers). This new feature avoids relying on computers to per- form one of the most critical tasks identified when we defined our telescope and instru- ments safety requirements — the autono- mous closing of shutters and vent gates.

The electronics that control the primary mir- ror covers and their mechanisms were also upgraded to make their operation not only safer for the primary mirror but also more re- liable. This improvement allows us to open and close the covers remotely from the base facility as well.

For instance, Gemini North can now remotely To make the work environment more suit- turn systems on and off that could previous- able for nighttime operations at the base ly only be controlled at the telescope facility. facility, we’ve modified the control room so Also, Gemini has long used human spotters it can accommodate additional monitors to detect aircraft and alarm telescope opera- and network connection ports, provide bet- tors of possible accidental illumination from ter lighting, and support additional security. the Gemini laser. This system became un- Finally, the telescope facility had to be up- workable under the new operational model, graded to improve its dialup notifications so we reached out to our colleagues at the infrastructure and security system, as well. W.M. Keck Observatory and joined in a very successful collaboration that resulted in an The Trial Run in Hawai‘i automated Transponder-Based Aircraft De- tector (TBAD). Developed by Keck and Tom During BFO’s trial operations phase at Gem- Murphy at the University of California, TBAD ini North, we completed internal testing of can monitor aircraft transponder signals, de- most of the critical work packages and fol- termine whether the craft are too close to lowed that with user testing and verification. the area of laser propagation, and, if so, send For the first time, on the night of September a command to close the laser shutter with- 8-9, 2015, a full test of the remote observing out any human intervention. capabilities at Gemini North was successful- Our Gemini North generator power transfer ly completed operating in “base mode” while system also needed attention, so we modi- the night crew was still at the telescope. Over fied and improved it to remotely, and autono- the two following weeks, the night crew (Sci- mously, close the dome if a power outage ence Operations Specialists, SOSs) refrained occurs. The system will also work even if the from going outside the control room to see

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 55 software acts autonomously, en- suring the telescope and dome are safely parked, closed, or stopped, even with the loss of commercial power.

The first trial run was part of our “gradual descent” strategy, which broke down the work into 17 man- ageable pieces (work packages) that followed different schedules.

The second run started on Octo- ber 12th, and we ensured that all SOSs had opportunities to use the summit configuration and learn how to operate in base facility op- erations mode, before attempting remote operations from Hilo.

In November, the third trial run fo- cused on operating from the base facility, while still having person- Figure 3. if what we have developed and tested works nel on the summit — at the very Sample of data from in the real remote observing configuration. least at the beginning of the night. SOSs the Gemini North were able to open and close the upgraded During base operations trial runs, several sys- CloudCam system. primary mirror covers from the base facility tems were tested, which included a set of five control room. This was a big milestone for Cloud Sensing Cameras (strategically located BFO, since, as mentioned, it was necessary on the roof of Gemini’s support building), to modify the covers to eliminate the risk two external surveillance cameras, one ex- of damaging the primary mirror while per- ternal fog camera (equipped with a remotely forming this function remotely. We achieved operated flashlight), five internal pan tilt this by implementing a design upgrade that cameras (located in the observing floor), and two sets of environmental sensors (designed to mea- Figure 4. sure humidity, tempera- Eduardo Tapia ture, and detect the pres- (left) and Gustavo Arriagada (right) work ence of snow, ice, and rain). on the remote sensing In addition, we tested the system which is now software that allows SOSs mounted on the roof to start and stop telescope of the Gemini North systems and protect the Maunakea support entire facility in case of rain building adjacent to — or worse — if we expe- the telescope. rience loss of the network or a major earthquake. This

56 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 effectively captured the overall project’s volved in the success of BFO. This is truly an guiding principle of doing the minimum to Observatory-wide project. obtain the maximum possible benefit. Special acknowledgments also have to go The team undertook the fourth and final run to the people at the Canada-France-Hawai‘i only once all problems identified in the first Telescope (CFHT) who shared many of their three runs had been prioritized and any po- lessons learned and important ideas on how tential showstoppers solved. This time, ob- to develop and implement BFO at Gemini. servers performed all operations from the CFHT engineers and scientists were very pa- base facility control room with no personnel tient and collaborative, especially consider- on the summit. ing our many visits (even at the beginning of the night) to either ask for design details As this year in review issue goes to press, full or observe their facility operating remotely. remote operations are ongoing at Gemini Their willingness to provide information was North. always superb, and the information they pro- vided was accurate and in-depth. We learned Implementation in Chile much from the CFHT staff and management, As we enter 2016, we officially begin work and for that we are extremely grateful. on BFO at Gemini South, with the goal of handing over to Operations during the third BFO Legacy quarter of 2016. With BFO fully implemented at Gemini North While one might think that most of the work we are the first 8-10-meter-class observa- required to establish BFO at Gemini South tory to routinely operate from a base facility would be very similar to what has been done at night. This will save money (important in at Gemini North, there are significant differ- this era of diminishing budgets for research), ences. These will require the introduction of and reduce environmental impact on Mau- some level of development before we start nakea and, ultimately, Cerro Pachón (which to install, integrate, and test the work pack- was pointed out as an important and wel- age products at Gemini South. come outcome at a recent Maunakea man- agement meeting in Hawai‘i).

An Impressive Team Effort Finally, Gemini’s remote operations will open BFO is the result of the effort and dedication up new operational models. It is now possi- of many engineers, technicians, and SOSs ble to imagine observers in full control of the who incorporated this effort into their oper- telescopes and instruments, executing their ations work in order to schedule tasks relat- observations from anywhere on our planet, ed to the project. Without their enthusiastic and uniting our Partnership in new ways participation it would have been impossible that we cannot yet even imagine. to keep the 17 concurrent work packages progressing at a steady state — from gather- ing requirements, to conceptual design, and Gustavo Arriagada is Senior Project Manager then to final design and implementation — in the Engineering Group at Gemini South and over a period of many months. leads the BFO project for Gemini. He can be reached at: [email protected] Because of its nature, we believe that every- one at the Observatory was at some level in-

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 57 October 2015 André-Nicolas Chené GRACES: The Beginning of a Scientific Legacy

The Gemini/Canada-France-Hawai‘i (CFHT) partnership to provide Gemini users with access to the CFHT’s high-resolution optical spectrograph ESPaDOnS is now complete. Called GRACES, initial commissioning in 2015 was a resounding success, and regular operations have already started in Semester 2015B. This project provides users with a powerful new capability of high- resolution optical spectroscopy.

The Gemini Remote Access to CFHT’s ESPaDOnS Spectrograph (GRACES) project has had a long and interesting history. Suffice it to say, however, that there has always been a healthy level of skepticism about the feasibility of the project and the likelihood of its success.

History and Background on GRACES At the core of early doubts was the project’s need for two 270-meter-long fiber cables (Fig- ure 1) to feed light from the 8-meter primary of Gemini North into ESPaDOnS — a bench- mounted high-resolution échelle spectrograph and spectropolarimeter at CFHT designed to obtain a complete optical spectrum — from 370 to 1050 nanometers (nm) — in a single exposure (see Figure 2). Could light travel through such a fiber and make it to the other end without a lot of it being lost in the process? This was the key question and risk in the project. GRACES can now answer this question affirmatively, having achieved success ear- lier this year, thereby marking a major milestone for astronomy. The result allows Gemini to share the ESPaDonS instrument with CFHT and provide a short and inexpensive way to add a significant new user-desired capability in the process.

Key to the GRACES success was the challenging job completed by the National Research Council-Herzberg (Canada) to create the GRACES fiber cable (the longest astronomical -fi ber ever made) in collaboration with FiberTech Optica. Together they worked more than a

58 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 year on the polishing and cabling methods Some early users have already benefited Figure 1. that would make the fiber so efficient that from GRACES’ high performance: for in- Different perspectives one might forget it is even there. stance, Tim Davidge (Principal Research Offi- showing the conduit cer at NRC-Herzberg) used GRACES to study between CFHT and Today, with commissioning complete, we aspects of galaxy evolution — to character- Gemini. find that even the most optimistic estimates ize the large-scale events that have influ- of throughput (i.e. the percentage of pho- enced their present-day appearance. tons that hit the mirror and subsequently fall on the detector) with the fiber were be- “One thing I can say is that I am impressed low what we would ultimately achieve. The by the signal-to-noise ratio of the M101 and recent commissioning observations reveal NGC 6946 data”, Davidge says. that the total throughput of GRACES in the Lison Malo, CFHT resident astronomer and red part of the spectrum is the same (~12%) scientific lead for the GRACES project, is as it is for ESPaDOnS, which is fed by a much Figure 2. equally enthusiastic about GRACES’ perfor- shorter fiber at the CFHT. Full GRACES spectrum of mance. She comments, “The exposure was the Moon in the 1-fiber In its Gemini state, GRACES’ sensitivity is ~ 22 300 seconds long and the final signal-to- mode. Up to 36 orders magnitude at R band (i.e. a target with R = 22 noise ratio is around 50 per pixel, which is are visible, i.e., from magnitude gives a signal to noise of 1 after a higher than expected!!! And it was not pos- order #22 (centered on 1 hour exposure). This sensitivity compares sible to observe this object using just ESPa- 1029nm) to #58 (centered favorably (in some cases exceeds) what is pos- DOnS at CFHT.” on 408nm). sible with other similar instruments elsewhere in the world (see comparisons, Figure 3).

Early Observations Gemini offered GRACES for the first time this year and the demand was huge! The Cana- dian and Brazilian communities requested GRACES for over 30 and 40 percent of their time, respectively.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 59 Figure 3. Prepping and Comparison of the Using GRACES GRACES spectrum of Feige 66 observed in GRACES consists of three the two-slice mode, components: (1) an injec- and the HIRES tion module (Figure 4) spectrum leveled that sends light from the to match GRACES Gemini Multi-Object Spec- observations trograph at Gemini North weather conditions (GMOS-N) into (2) the two and resolution. long fiber cables (that con- nect Gemini North to CFHT, and (3) a receiver unit re- sponsible for injecting the light from the fibers into the ESPaDOnS.

In preparation of a GRACES observing block, Gemini staff need to install the injection module in GMOS-N, occupying the same First GRACES’ Science Paper mask slot as the instrument’s integral field The first paper based upon GRACES data is nearing completion by Li- unit (IFU). The injection can, like the IFU, be son Malo of CFHT. Her work focuses on nearby young associations of moved in and out the beam, so GMOS-N im- stars in order to better understand their formation history, determine aging capability can be used for the target the initial mass function, and test theories of stellar evolution. acquisition.

Her team’s work with GRACES is to establish the membership and age On the CFHT side, the pick-off mirror in of very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in nearby kinematic groups. the receiver unit injecting Gemini’s light in Observations focus on the most probable candidates visible in the sky ESPaDOnS is deployed, and the control of in Semester 2015B that do not currently have high-resolution spectra. the spectrograph is given over to the Gem- ini observer. This handover process requires Shown here is representative GRACES data of an M6 dwarf which is a transparent communication between Gem- target from Malo’s research program. ini and CFHT at each step and has proven to It is expected that Malo’s work will be published soon in a Letter, which work very well. will also include a description of the data reduction pipeline. For Gemini’s users, GRACES provides high- resolution (up to R ~ 67,500) optical (400 – 1000 nm) spectroscopic capabilities with an on-sky fiber covering 1.2 arcseconds. Because of its unique configuration i.e.,( the GRACES injection module replaces the IFU module in GMOS-N, making it impos- sible to do both GMOS-N IFU and GRACES observations on the same night), it is only available for 10-night blocks, twice each semester. Proposing for GRACES is handled through the normal Gemini two-semester proposal process.

60 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 a c

While GRACES’ capabilities are groundbreaking, the instrument itself is very simple to use. The acquisition sequence is fast and easy to set up, and the total over- heads are quite low (about 10 minutes). The data are in a stan- b dard format and can be easily in- terpreted, like any other échelle spectra.

The Future of GRACES We anticipate that GRACES will con- tinue to be a part of Gemini and CFHT operations for many years to come. In the immediate future we e d will continue to improve GRACES’ performance for optimal operations on sky. We Figure 4. will also continue to collaborate with CFHT on a (a) The receiver unit in its shipping box when received at Maunakea. (b) The data-reduction pipeline based on the currently receiver unit during its installation in ESPaDOnS. (c) The injection module in existing open source software named OPERA, its cassette during alignment. (d) The GRACES cassette (at right) installed into used at CFHT since 2004. GMOS, next to the two GMOS mask holders. (e) Shadow image of the injection module taken with GMOS in imaging mode when a bright star was centered Given the strong initial success of GRACES with on one fiber; we can see the silhouette of the mask containing the fiducial its commissioning science, we look forward holes that were used to calibrate the acquisition of the target during on-sky to seeing lots of exciting and cutting-edge commissioning. science results from our user community. While the obvious uses for GRACES are clear, it will be those innovative observing pro- grams our community will undoubtedly re- veal that will ultimately define the legacy of this project.

André-Nicolas Chené is assistant scientist/GRAC- ES instrument scientist at Gemini North. He can be reached at: [email protected] January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 61 January 2016 Paul Hirst The New Cloud-based Gemini Observatory Archive The new Cloud-based Gemini Observatory Archive is now online and available to our user community and anyone wanting to retrieve Gemini data. The new archive has many powerful tools and features that are described here — take it for a test-drive!

The new Gemini Observatory Archive (GOA) provides a simple yet powerful way for the Gemini user community (especially those who wish to write scripts) to search for and down- load data. A key feature of the new Cloud-based archive is its ability to automatically find and match optimal calibration data for your search results. GOA’s powerful web interface also allows bookmarking search results and provides an easy-to-use Application Program- mer Interface (API).

As I write these words, I have one eye monitoring several windows in the corner of my com- puter screen, which shows that our new archive server is running quietly and smoothly. One window shows me that afternoon calibrations are being taken on Gemini North, and I see those data files transferring into the archive. More than a hundred users have already cre- ated accounts on the system and I see them accessing proprietary data for their projects; more users are accessing the server anonymously, either to just check out the system, or search for older data. The Gemini Observatory Archive can be accessed here.

Data Management Dilemma Shortly after I started working at Gemini in late 2006, I realized we had a problem with in-house data management: data were being manually copied between different disks and backup me- dia in a somewhat ad hoc manner. In addition, a disk failure on an aged Sun workstation left us scrabbling to locate backup copies of some Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrometer engi- neering data that had been lost. The final straw came as an urgent phone call from the night crew who needed to free up disk space for incoming data, but they weren’t 100% sure that the data they wanted to delete was safely on another disk or even in the archive.

62 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 “I have used the new Gemini Observatory Archive to retrieve data for our LP-3 and I found it very easy to use and fast so I don’t anticipate any problems. I am grateful to the team at Gemini that has been working on it. “ — Catherine Huitson, PI of GN-2015B-LP-3

To solve all these problems, I initiated the tem; then, following approval by an external FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) stor- group of testers, worked through 2015 trans- age project and wrote a software package forming the prototype into the fully devel- that would scan through the FITS files on a file oped GOA. The system is now deployed on system and record details of them in a data- Amazon Web Services, using an EC2 (Elastic base. A simple web interface presented con- Compute Cloud) virtual server and storing cise summaries of the data files. Gemini also data on S3 (Simple Storage Solution) with bought some modern LTO4 (high capacity backups on Amazon Glacier. and performance) tape drives, and wrote soft- ware to record (in the database) file details as Cloud Computing it wrote them to tape. The decision to store data “in the Cloud” has With these changes, we’d never lose a single raised more than a few eyebrows, but once file again. We’d also be able to know with a we started researching this option, it quickly few mouse clicks which files were safely on became obvious that this approach offers tape, and which tapes they were on. We wrote many advantages. As far as we know, we’re scripts that tied into the system to clear old the first major observatory hosting our ar- data off disk (after first checking it was safely chive on a commercial Cloud computing plat- on multiple tapes) to ensure that disks didn’t form, though I’m sure more will follow. fill up. Cloud computing prices, especially for data Fast forwarding into the Transition Plan years, storage, have plummeted over the last few we realized that the FITS Storage System had years; we’re actually now paying about a evolved to the point where it would be pos- quarter of what we estimated two years ago. sible, with a reasonable amount of effort, to One of the real strengths of the Cloud for us expand it into a fully fledged archive system. is Internet connectivity. As mentioned, our As neither the Hilo nor La Serena base facili- Internet connections from Hilo and La Ser- ties have adequate internet connectivity for ena aren’t geared up for users simultaneously users to simultaneously download data from downloading data from all over the world, all over the world, they seemed unattractive whereas that’s exactly what Cloud systems are as locations to host an archive server. How- designed to support. ever, when we researched the costs of Cloud computing services — such as Amazon Web For a modest cost, we are able to buy into Services and Google Cloud Platform — it be- massive global computing and network in- came pleasantly apparent that substantial frastructure that also supports such Internet cost savings could be realized by moving to giants as Netflix and Dropbox. The GOA soft- an in-house developed archive system hosted ware itself is very flexible, and can run both on on a commercial Cloud platform. the Cloud or on a conventional Linux server. In fact, we run instances of the same software at We were given the go-ahead at the end of both our summit sites to provide internal data 2013, spent 2014 developing a prototype sys- management facilities.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 63 “I’ve tried using the new archive for some PI data and I just wanted to let you know how impressed I am with how it works. The interface is easy to use and intuitive.” — Tom Matheson, US NGO

Mixing this with Cloud computing gives us a Bookmarkable Searches huge range of scalability options; for example, if a new (or existing) Gemini partner country Another particularly useful feature of GOA or institution found that their internet connec- is its ability to bookmark searches. When tion to the current archive server isn’t so great, you enter a field in the search form and click we could deploy an extra server, either within “search,” your browser is directed to a URL the Amazon Cloud at a data center located that represents that search. This allows you to closer to them, or even potentially on a server bookmark the page, copy and paste the URL located within an astronomical institution. from your browser, save the URL in your notes, email it to a Co-Investigator, or whatever you like. And if you visit that URL in the future, that Keeping It Simple search is preserved and will find all the data In developing the GOA archive web inter- from that program; if any new data has been face, we wanted to keep things as simple, added since you saved the URL, you’ll see the yet as powerful, as possible. There is only new results too. one search form for the archive; it provides a single and clear starting point for any archive Low Latency search — whether it’s a Principal Investiga- tor (PI) looking for data from his or her own Some time ago, we started “remote eaves- observing program or someone interested dropping,” whereby PIs could connect to the in searching for public data on an object. Gemini control room while their observations Searches by a variety of parameters (such as were being made. This allows users to inter- instrument, observing date, and observing act with the queue observing team and pro- modes) are provided, along with instrument- vide feedback on the data as it comes in. With specific details and, of course, target names Base Facility Operations already happening at and sky positions. Gemini North, we might look to a future that also includes Remote Observations — GOA is GOA was by definition a lean project; the driv- already prepared for this, as we designed the er was cost savings, and this meant limited new archive to make data available prompt- functionality. While we deliberately decided ly. Data typically are available to download to make it a simpler system than the previous within a minute or so of completing a read- Gemini Science Archive, we would also main- out. At the moment, Gemini North data are tain the functionality that had proved most slightly quicker (often as fast as 20 seconds) beneficial over the years. The only example of due to the better Internet connection to Mau- lost functionality that users have commented nakea. However, as the Large Synoptic Survey on is that the archive no longer provides de- Telescope begins laying fiber optics to Cerro tails of proposal abstracts in the database, and Pachón, we anticipate Gemini South data to searching by PI name is not possible. We’re fall into the same regime. keeping a list of ideas and feature requests to Paul Hirst is a staff scientist at Gemini Observa- consider for future upgrades. tory and can be reached at: [email protected]

64 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Alexis-Ann Acohido October 2015

Record-breaking Rooftop Solar Panel System Installed at Gemini North Gemini Observatory leads the way in the use of renewable energy sources on Maunakea, as evidenced by the latest installation of PV solar panels on the rooftop of Gemini North. This move toward a more eco-efficient operation shows Gemini’s commitment to the positive stewardship of our planet. Figure 1. The PV panels were transported to the roof by crane. The Gemini Engineering group has finished the installation of photovol- taic (PV) solar panels on the roof of the Gemini North telescope. Maui Pacific Solar installed the panels and it took about six weeks to complete.

“The PV panels [on Maunakea] are the second highest in the world (the high- est are in Tibet) by about 200 feet [~61 meters]”, says Maui Pacific Solar Found- er and President Mike Carroll. “How- ever, [Gemini’s] is the highest rooftop mounted PV system in the world that is connected to the utility.”

The solar panels will (conservative- ly) generate about 10% of the power required to operate the Maunakea facility, and will be roughly 70% more energy productive than the panels planned for installation on the roof of the observatory’s base facility in Hilo. PV systems operating on Maunakea are more efficient than at sea level for three important reasons: first, Maunakea receives on average 6.4 peak

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 65 Figure 2. The Gemini Roof Cam captures workers installing the PV panels on the roof of Gemini North.

Figure 3. PV panels now cover the entire roof.

Sun hours a day as opposed to Hilo, with Gemini Observatory continues to explore only 4.6 peak Sun hours a day, resulting in a new ways to improve operational efficiency. 39% benefit; second, PV systems operating “While PV panels require a significant invest- on Maunakea at low summit temperatures ment”, says Gemini Lead Engineer for the of ~45º F versus ~80º F at sea level result in project Chas Cavedoni, “we predict that the another 10% improvement in performance; investment will be recovered in less than finally, PV systems operating almost 14,000 four years.” feet (4,200 meters) above sea level, where the Sun is more intense due to reduced atmo- spheric absorption, results in an additional Alexis-Ann Acohido is a public relations intern at 10% benefit. The approximate energy output Gemini North. She can be reached at: of the panels on the telescope is expected to [email protected] be about 100 kilowatts.

66 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Gemini Legacy Image Releases

October 2015 The HH 24 Jet Complex A new Gemini Observatory image reveals a fascinating display of celestial “fireworks” accompanying the birth of stars. The image captures in unprecedented clarity the complex structures of a gas jet complex emanating from a stellar nursery at supersonic speeds. The striking new image hints at the remarkably dynamic (and messy) process of star birth. Researchers believe they have also found a collection of runaway (orphan) stars that result from all this activity.

Gemini Observatory has released one of the most detailed images ever obtained of emerg- ing gas jets streaming from a region of newborn stars. The region, known as the Herbig-Haro 24 (HH 24) Complex, contains no less than six jets streaming from a small cluster of young stars embedded in a molecular cloud in the direction of the constellation of Orion.

“This is the highest concentration of jets known anywhere,” says Principal Investigator Bo Reipurth of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA), who adds, “We also think the very dynamic environment causes some of the lowest mass stars in the area to be ex- pelled, and our Gemini data are supporting that idea.”

Reipurth along with co-researcher, Colin Aspin, also at the IfA, are using the Gemini North data from the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), as well as the Gemini Near-Infra- red Imager, to study the region which was discovered in 1963 by George Herbig and Len Kuhi. Located in the Orion B cloud, at a distance of about 400 parsecs, or about 1,300 light years from our Solar System, this region is rich in young stars and has been extensively stud- ied in all types of light, from radio waves to X-rays.

“The Gemini data are the best ever obtained from the ground of this remarkable jet complex and are showing us striking new detail,” says Aspin. Reipurth and Aspin add that they are particularly interested in the fine structure and “excitation distribution” of these jets.

“One jet is highly disturbed, suggesting that the source may be a close binary whose orbit perturbs the jet body,” says Reipurth.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 67 The HH 24 jet complex emanates from a dense cloud core that hosts a small multiple protostellar system known as SSV 63. The nebulous star to the south is the visible T Tauri star SSV 59. Color image based on g, r, and i images obtained with GMOS on Gemini North in 0.5 arcsecond seeing. Image produced by Travis Rector. Image credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/B. Reipurth, C. Aspin, T. Rector.

68 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 The researchers report that the jet complex July 2015 emanates from SSV 63 — a Class I protostar system, which high-resolution infrared imag- ing reveals to have at least five components. More sources are found in this region, but Seeing Where only at longer, submillimeter wavelengths of light, suggesting that there are even younger, and more deeply embedded sources in the Stars Collide region. All of these embedded sources are lo- cated within the dense molecular cloud core. Using the advanced adaptive A search for dim optical and infrared young optics system GeMS, on the stars has revealed several faint optical stars located well outside the star-forming core. Gemini South telescope, In particular, GMOS found a halo of five faint astronomers have imaged a hydrogen-alpha (H-alpha) emission stars beautiful stellar jewel-box — a (which emit large amounts of red light) sur- tightly packed cluster of stars that rounding the HH 24 Complex well outside is one of the few places in our the dense cloud core. Gemini spectroscopy of the H-alpha emission stars show that they Galaxy where astronomers think are early or mid-M dwarfs (stars with very low stars can actually collide. mass), at least one of which being a border- line brown dwarf. Scientists have imaged a cluster of stars, The presence of these five stars well out- heavily obscured by material in our Galaxy, side the star-forming cloud core is puzzling, where stars are so densely packed that it is because the gas there is far too tenuous for likely a rare environment where stars can star formation. Instead they are likely orphan collide. “It’s a bit like a stellar billiards table, protostars ejected shortly after birth from where the probability of collisions depends the nearby star-forming core. Such ejections on the size of the table and on the number occur when many stars form closely together of billiard balls on it,” says Francesco R. Fer- within the same cloud core. The crowded raro of the University of Bologna (Italy), one stars start moving around each other in a of the team members who used the Gemini chaotic dance. This ultimately leads to the Observatory to make the observations. ejection of the smallest ones. Liller 1 is a tight sphere of stars known as a A consequence of such ejections is that pairs globular cluster. Globular clusters orbit in of the remaining protostars bind together a large halo around the center, or nucleus, gravitationally. The dense gas that surrounds of our Galaxy; many of the closer globular the newly formed pairs brakes their motion, clusters are spectacular showpieces, even in so they gradually spiral together to form tight small telescopes or binoculars. “This isn’t one binary systems with highly eccentric orbits. of these showpieces, it is so obscured by ma- Each time the two components are closest in terial in the central bulge of our Galaxy that it their orbits they disturb each other, leading is almost completely invisible in visual light,” to accretion of gas, and an outflow event that observes Sara Sarachino of the University of we see as supersonic jets. The many knots in Bologna and lead author on the paper. In- the jets thus represent a series of such per- deed, Liller 1 is located at almost 30,000 light turbations. years from Earth, and only about 3,200 light

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 69 Gemini Observatory years away from the center of the Milky Way that, among globular clusters, Liller 1 is one near-infrared image — in one of the most inaccessible regions of of the best environments in our Galaxy for of the globular cluster our Galaxy, where thick clouds of dust pre- stellar collisions.” Liller 1 obtained with the vent the optical light from emerging. “Only The unprecedented ultra-sharp view of the GeMS adaptive optics infrared radiation can travel across these cluster reveals a vast city of stars estimated system on the Gemini clouds and bring us direct information on by the team to contain a total mass of at South telescope in Chile. its stars,” comments Emanuele Dalessandro, least 1.5 million suns, very similar to the two also of the University of Bologna. most massive globular clusters in our Gal- “Although our Galaxy has upwards of 200 bil- axy: Omega Centauri and Terzan 5. lion stars, there is so much vacancy between Geisler’s team specializes in the study of stars that there are very few places where globular clusters near the center of the Milky suns actually collide,” says Douglas Giesler Way, while Ferraro’s team is adept at the re- of the University of Conception in Chile and duction of infrared data on globular clusters. Principal Investigator of the original observ- Both groups worked together to obtain the ing proposal. “The congested overcrowded beautiful and detailed observations of Liller central regions of globular clusters are one 1 with Gemini. of these places. Our observations confirmed 70 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 The observations of the tightly packed clus- ter used Gemini Observatory’s powerful Background: adaptive optics system at the Gemini South Stellar Collisions telescope in Chile. Stellar collisions are important because A technical jewel named GeMS (derived from they can provide the key to understand- “Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics ing how certain exotic objects, which can- System”), in combination with the powerful not be explained by the passive evolution infrared camera Gemini South Adaptive Op- of single stars, originate. “Blue Stragglers,“ tics Imager (GSAOI), was able to penetrate for instance, are old stars that mysteriously the dense fog surrounding Liller 1 and to appear younger than they should be; these provide astronomers with this unprecedent- exotic stars may be formed by nearly head- ed view of its stars. on collisions that cause the stars to merge, This has been made possible thanks to the mixing their nuclear fuel and restoking the combination of two specific characteristics fire of nuclear fusion. But collisions can also of GeMS: first, the capability of operating involve binary systems, with the effect of at near-infrared wavelengths (especially in shrinking the initial size of the system, pro- the K pass-band); second, an innovative and moting the two components to interact and revolutionary way to remove the distortions producing a variety of objects like low-mass (blurriness) that the Earth’s turbulent atmo- X-ray binaries, millisecond pulsars, etc. sphere inflicts on astronomical images. In particular, millisecond pulsars are old neu- To compensate for the degrading effects of tron stars in a binary system whose rotation the Earth’s atmosphere, the GeMS system periods have been reaccelerated to millisec- uses three natural guide stars, a constella- onds by matter accreting onto them from a tion of five laser guide stars, and multiple companion star. Astronomers suspect that deformable mirrors. The correction is so fine Liller 1 harbors a large population of these that astronomers are provided with images exotic objects. Although no millisecond pul- of unparalleled sharpness. sar has been directly observed up to now, the detection of intense gamma-ray emis- In the best K-band exposures of Liller 1, stel- sion (the most intense detected so far from lar images have an angular resolution of a globular cluster) suggests a large hidden only 75 milliarcseconds, just slightly larger population. The Gemini observations con- than the theoretical limit (known as the dif- firm that this is possible. fraction limit) of Gemini’s 8-meter mirror. This means that GeMS almost perfectly cor- “Indeed, our observations confirm Liller 1 as rected Earth’s atmospheric distortions. one of the best ‘laboratories’ where the im- pact of star cluster dynamics on stellar evo- The international research team published lution can be studied: it opens the window the results in the June 15th issue of The As- to a sort of stellar sociology study, aimed at trophysical Journal (volume 806, page 152). measuring the impact of the reciprocal influ- The astro-ph version of the article can be ence of stars when they are forced to live in found here. conditions of extreme crowding and stress,” The results achieved on Liller 1 have been so concludes Ferraro. important that the research team is current- Additional information can be found here. ly expanding their work to other globular clusters, which promise to deliver even more exciting science. January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 71 April 2015 Janice Harvey

Journey Through the Universe Gemini North’s flagship local outreach program launches into its second decade with unflagging support from the community and Maunakea observatories.

2015 ushered in the second decade of Journey Through the Universe on the Big Island of Hawai’i. During our 11th year of “Journey” week, over 50 astronomers, engineers and observatory staff continued to inspire and engage thousands of local Hawai‘i students (over 5,000 this year). Since its conception well over a decade ago, Journey has partnered successfully with Hawai‘i Department of Education’s Hilo/Waiakea School Complex, to augment its science curriculum and spark an in- terest in astronomy and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathe- matics (STEM)-related initiatives. District Superintendent Valerie Taka- ta elaborates, “Our schools’ stellar partnership with the observatories, business organizations, and community is Journey Through the Uni- verse’s STEM initiative. As part of the educational system, our complex area is overwhelmed with appreciation for the enthusiasm and energy this initiative has generated for our schools… students, teachers and administrators, and families. This concerted effort has made this grass- roots program a sustaining reality as we move into our second decade. We humbly thank the community for their continued support as we all Jeff Donahue, work together toward common goals and building a better future.” Gemini’s senior optics technician, explores As Takata so eloquently explained, this stellar outreach initiative has a broad impact on our the properties of light community. Following is a sampling of the events that lit up the Hilo schools and community with students at Hilo with our STEM-inspired outreach activities. Union Elementary School as part of a We welcome you to become a part of our Journey team. For more information please visit Journey Through the www.gemini.edu/journey. Universe classroom presentation. Janice Harvey is the Community Outreach and Education Programs Leader at Gemini North. She can be reached at: [email protected]

72 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Gemini astronomer, Chad Trujillo, Hawai‘i State demonstrates Department the scale of of Education our Solar Superintendent System to 3rd Kathryn grade students Matayoshi at Ha‘aheo participates with Elementary a 4th grade class School. at Keauakaha Elementary School in Hilo as students build and explore a 3D constellation using wooden beads hanging from strings. The demonstration was led by Gemini’s Gemini North’s local outreach André Nicolas-Chené (not assistant Christine Copes helps an shown). interested visitor build an origami cube featuring Gemini images at the annual Journey Family Science Day. The event, which attracted over 2,300 participants, is a partnership with the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Education Center.

Honoring Janice Harvey, a Gemini “Shining Star!” At the annual Hawai‘i Island, and Japanese Chamber of Commerces’ Journey celebration, attended by a record number of Journey participants and local businesses, Gemini North’s Community Outreach and Education Program Leader Janice Harvey received the Department of Education’s prestigious Shining Star award (inset). In the photo, Hawai‘i State Department of Education Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi (right), and District Superintendent Valerie Takata (left) present the award to Janice for her hard work and devotion to the Journey program. The award recognizes outstanding service and dedication to education in Hawai‘i and, as Gemini staff know, Janice’s efforts are indeed stellar. We are especially proud of her seemingly infinite ability to share our work and inspire the future of students.

— Peter Michaud

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 73 For his presentation at Hilo High School, Gemini Director Markus Kissler- Patig discusses how, when looking for life in outer space, we might first look at Earth’s own extreme life forms.

Gemini North’s Public Information and Outreach Manager Peter Michaud enlightens 6th graders at Hilo Union Elementary School as they design and build simple spectroscopes to explore light.

Gemini science operations specialist Michael Hoenig uses an infrared camera at a 5th grade class at Hilo’s De Silva Elementary School to demonstrate how astronomers observe the universe in different types of light.

74 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Maria-Antonieta García January 2016 Viaje al Universo 2015: Learning, Fun, and Laughter!

The Gemini South flagship outreach program,Viaje al Universo engaged and inspired thousands of students in late 2015. Figure 1. In early December, “Sharing what I do with local students is so energizing,” says Gemini astronomer Erich Wen- Gemini hosted five deroth as he reflects on time spent with students in classrooms in, and around, Gemini’s students and one host community, La Serena, Chile. Since 2006 Erich has participated in Gemini’s annual Viaje teacher from each of al Universo (Viaje) program, sharing his passion for astronomy and science. “I look forward the participating Viaje to the day that a young astronomer approaches me and reminds me of a talk I gave to the schools as special guests classroom,” Wenderoth says, following his visit to San Nicolás school during the latest Viaje at the Gemini South telescope facility on program in October. Cerro Pachón. Viaje al Universo is a week long program that brings as- tronomers, engineers, and science educators into local Chilean classrooms in order to share the excitement of scientific discovery with students and teachers. In addi- tion to the classroom visits, a variety of other activities bring science down to Earth, such as StarLab portable planetarium shows, hands-on activities for the entire familily (see Figure 3), and a popular panel discussion that shares the job opportunities available at astronom- ical observatories.

Three members of Spain’s stand-up/interactive com- edy troupe, “The Big Van: Scientists on Wheels” added a healthy dose of humor to this year’s mix (Figure 2). “It was an excellent week, and we discovered a lot of en- thusiastic and creative people,” says troupe member Irene Puerto, who, along with Alberto Vivó and Javier

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 75 Santaolalla, entertained and inspired nearly This year’s Viaje al Universo program en- 4,000 students and teachers during their gaged students and teachers from six re- week in Chile. “Beautiful stages were wait- gional schools: San Nicolas, Trinity, St. Mary’s, ing for us at the schools and two astronauts San Joaquin, Carlos Condell de la Haza, and accompanied our performance in a fruit Martin de Porres. Helping to advance their market and in front of a cathedral. It was knowledge were staff from the following definitely an unforgettable experience!” observatories and astronomy affiliates: the Figure 2. adds Vivó. Association of Universities for Research in As- Students from Carlos tronomy, Gemini Observatory, Cerro Tololo “Gemini is thrilled that we have many new Condell de La Haza Inter-American Observatory, Las Campanas partners in our effort this year,” said Gemini Christ School (La Serena), Observatory, the Giant Magellan Telescope, Deputy Director Nancy Levenson at Viaje’s and República de Israel the Office for the Protection of the Northern opening ceremony. “It is indeed a sign that we (Coquimbo) join the “Big Sky of Chile, and the University of La Serena. Van: Scientists on Wheels” are having an impact when our community and Gemini staff after steps up to participate actively in our work.” As a special treat, Gemini also hosted in early a presentation of fun December five students and one teacher scientific monologues. (from each of the schools that participated in the Viaje activities) as guests at the Gem- ini South telescope facility on Cerro Pachon (Figure 1). More surprises and special events are now being planned for Viaje 2016. We hope to see you there!

To learn more about Viaje al Universe, please visit: www.gemini.edu/viaje

Antonieta García is Gemini South’s Outreach and Media Specialist. She can be reached at: [email protected]

Figure 3. Learning phases of the Moon is much more attractive when you can eat the cookies, at least according to members of this Trinity School’s family after their participation in Viaje al Universo program.

76 GeminiFocus 2015 Year in Review January 2016 Figure 4. Big Van’s Javier Santalaolla (third from left), illustrates a proton collision by having San Joaquín School students interact in front of the entire high school audience.

Figure 5. Although the Viaje program targets schools, a public event at La Serena’s “Café ConCiencia” coffee shop attracted an engaged audience.

Figure 6. Staff from the La Serena City Hall Department of Tourism participate in a special workshop lead by the Big Van members to help improve their skills at communicating science to the public.

January 2016 2015 Year in Review GeminiFocus 77 This image shows Gemini staff (Andy Stephens, Andreea Petric, and Adam Smith, front to back) during the recently initiated remote operations at the Gemini base facility in Hilo, Hawai‘i.

The Gemini Observatory is operated by the Association of Universities Canada Brazil Argentina for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the United States Chile National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini Partnership.

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