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Issue 36, June 2008

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Issue 36, June 2008 June2008 June2008 In This Issue: 7 Supernova Birth Seen in Real Time Alicia Soderberg & Edo Berger 23 Arp299 With LGS AO Damien Gratadour & Jean-René Roy 46 Aspen Instrument Update Joseph Jensen On the Cover: NGC 2770, home to Supernova 2008D (see story starting on page 7 Engaging Our Host of this issue, and image 52 above showing location Communities of supernova). Image Stephen J. O’Meara, Janice Harvey, was obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object & Maria Antonieta García Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini North. 2 Gemini Observatory www.gemini.edu GeminiFocus Director’s Message 4 Doug Simons 11 Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Gemini South at moonset, April 2008 Omega Centauri Eva Noyola Collisions of 15 Planetary Embryos Earthquake Readiness Joseph Rhee 49 Workshop Michael Sheehan 19 Taking the Measure of a Black Hole 58 Polly Roth Andrea Prestwich Staff Profile Peter Michaud 28 To Coldly Go Where No Brown Dwarf 62 Rodrigo Carrasco Has Gone Before Staff Profile Étienne Artigau & Philippe Delorme David Tytell Recent 31 66 Photo Journal Science Highlights North & South Jean-René Roy & R. Scott Fisher Photographs by Gemini Staff: • Étienne Artigau NICI Update • Kirk Pu‘uohau-Pummill 37 Tom Hayward GNIRS Update 39 Joseph Jensen & Scot Kleinman FLAMINGOS-2 Update Managing Editor, Peter Michaud 42 Stephen Eikenberry Science Editor, R. Scott Fisher MCAO System Status Associate Editor, Carolyn Collins Petersen 44 Maxime Boccas & François Rigaut Designer, Kirk Pu‘uohau-Pummill 3 Gemini Observatory www.gemini.edu June2008 by Doug Simons Director, Gemini Observatory Director’s Message Figure 1. any organizations (Gemini Observatory 100 The year-end task included) have extremely dedicated and hard- completion statistics 90 working staff members striving to achieve a across the entire M 80 0-49% Done observatory are worthwhile goal. While laudable, that is not enough 50-99% Done shown. Roughly to prevent disappointment and confusion between 70 half of the projects Task Complete planned early in a provider (like Gemini) and its “customers” (the 60 2007 were completed astronomers that use Gemini), unless clear objectives are by the end of 50 defined and mutually understood. The “MO” at Gemini the year. 40 has historically been to try to get as much done as 30 possible, as quickly as possible. While we have achieved an incredible amount under that operating philosophy, 20 failing to communicate to the community what we can 10 and cannot realistically commit to provide contributes to Tasks of All Percent 0 burn-out on the part of Gemini’s staff and disappointment Task Completion Status among members of our user community. For this and related reasons, we have embarked upon a sweeping we will do, and then doing what we said. This type of change at Gemini centered on detailed planning of what organizational cultural change is incredibly challenging, we can actually achieve with the resources we have but I am convinced it will reap many benefits in the available. We are effectively turning the tide from a best- future, once complete. effort operation dedicated to trying to please as many people as possible to a committed operation that will An important part of this cultural change involves only take on a certain amount of work, saying what incorporating meaningful accountability at many 4 Gemini Observatory www.gemini.edu GeminiFocus completion statistics and an over-all performance plot in Figure 2. Figure 1. In summary, across all of the tasks programmed The 2007 Gemini Observatory into Gemini’s 2007 observatory Program Plan, a little Annual Progress under half were completed, and about 75% were either Report and Program Plan. completed or mostly completed. For our first attempt at this process I was pleased with the result but also recognize that we have much room for improvement. As Director, I take ultimate responsibility for our performance last year, which was a “mixed bag” in the end. During 2007 we identified a number of areas where better planning and, just as importantly, plan execution will improve these statistics in 2008 and beyond. The 2008 observatory Program Plan was generated through an exhaustive analysis of potential liens on our resources (cash, labor, time, etc.) and is predicated upon an overall goal of maximizing Gemini’s scientific product. In September 2007, roughly two dozen members of our management team met in Santiago to discuss levels into our plans and actions. As an international and formulate this plan after a couple of months of organization Gemini Observatory must account to intense preparation across all divisions. Representatives many entities but ultimately we are accountable to our from the Gemini Science Committee and Board were community for providing a world-class research platform also present during this planning retreat. The end result and to the taxpayers who make a publicly funded was a stark reminder of a “brutal reality” we must all observatory like Gemini possible. These stakeholders appreciate. In Santiago, with a vast number of pending need and deserve to understand our performance, as projects (beyond daily operations) displayed before our measured through a variety of metrics. managers and no way to find the resources required to do anything close to all of them, the core problem Part of the process of building accountability into our became clear to me. It has been right in front of us for culture therefore involves informing our stakeholders years but never have we quantified it so convincingly of our performance on many fronts. Toward that end as we did during our Santiago planning retreat. Simply we have recently posted on our Website, for the first put, Gemini’s staff was not sized to do much more than time, our Annual Progress Report (2007) and our 2008 sustain operations. We do not have a large stand-alone Program Plan summary (see Figure 2). Historically development team and our science staff is stretched too this report has been submitted to the National Science thin to make our very successful queue-based model Foundation per our Cooperative Agreement and, though work, with the “contingency” too often occurring in it has theoretically been a public document, it has never the form of staff research time. We have just enough really been made easily accessible to the community engineering resources to cover our needs, but the multi- until now. conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) program substantially consumes what little margin is available. The arrival Consistent with our goal of increased transparency, of a new instrument that needs to be incorporated Gemini’s Annual Progress Report for 2007 was overhauled and commissioned into our observatory environment and linked directly with our 2007 observatory Program represents a significant perturbation in our resources. Plan by inserting top-level performance statistics which While staring from the back of the conference room show what we completed and failed to complete during our 2007 planning retreat at the projection of compared to our plan. Since the reporting period used this complex planning spreadsheet, I was reminded of a in this report is the U.S. federal fiscal year, and our comment from a sage former observatory director. Fred observatory Program Plan is pinned to the calendar Chaffee (former Director of the W.M. Keck Observatory year, we have also provided the 2007 year-end task and Chair of the AOC-G) expressed to me earlier words 5 Gemini Observatory www.gemini.edu June2008 Figure 3. building new acquisition and guidance units to replace Gemini System our aging systems and commissioning a new secondary Support Associate Erich Wenderoth mirror at Gemini North were deferred until 2009. While operates the we commit to developing a detailed plan in 2008 to Gemini South telescope on the upgrade one GMOS with high-performance red CCDs, night of April 13, we have not committed to actually making that upgrade, 2008. While nightly pending resolution of a variety of cost and resource operations at both telescopes are issues. And, while our science team has committed ongoing, planning to supporting commissioning of the Near-Infrared for the short- and long-term future Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) and campaign science in at Gemini has also 2008, dozens of other proposed tasks within the science become an ongoing process now that division have been deferred to no sooner than 2009. Gemini has entered This includes developing additional reduction scripts a “mature” phase of operations. for instruments, addressing MICHELLE spectroscopy issues, and improving our image-quality-monitoring program. to the effect “...the first time we held such a planning exercise at Keck we concluded we had just enough Laying out all of this information for the community manpower to turn on the lights in the morning.” It was to see is an admittedly unusual (and some may assert) at that moment that I knew exactly what Fred meant. naïve move on Gemini’s part, with ever more pressure on astronomy budgets and the political realities of I encourage the community to have a look at our 2008 competing for scarce funding in the future. Nonetheless, plan and, at the end of the year, check to see how well I decided to do it because meeting our community’s we performed in completing the tasks defined therein. expectations means communicating more clearly than Until then, I want to point out that we have made ever what we plan to do. In addition, the integrity some tough choices in developing this plan. Repairing we achieve as an observatory and trust we seek from the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) was our community must be earned, and the starting point flagged as “mission-critical” in 2008 and will be pursued. in that process is a candid assessment of our current Likewise, increasing the reliability of the Gemini North position on the path forward.
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