tween Jupiter and the brown dwarfs with the
first examples of cool low-gravity planetary
atmospheres.
The first night of Campaign observations occurred on November 8, 2014, with the first of
a five-night block undertaken by the instrument team and Gemini staff. The first night
was inauspicious, plagued by poor seeing
varying and high winds, but the Campaign
has some observations which can stand
poorer conditions, and several Campaign targets were observed even on that first night.
By the end of the block a good haul of Campaign targets had been observed.
GPI Queue
GPI has been in the queue since the start of
Semester 14B, in scheduled blocks. Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating; out of six scheduled nights, we have
only completed three hours of observations.
Principal Investigators that have been affected have been contacted to add new targets
for those that have set.
Priority Visitor Runs Begin!
Principal Investigators of Large and Long
programs are becoming familiar with the
“Priority Visiting” mode, in which the observing program’s staff are placed at the summit
for an extended visit. A PI with an allocation
of 40 hours might, for example, come for a
total stay of six nights, within which they can
choose when to execute their observations
(possibly even choosing to observe in better
conditions than they formally requested).
them a nine-night summit block (see article in the October issue of GeminiFocus).
The run went very well and featured a night
on which three of the big Mauna Kea telescopes were trained on the same object at
the same time! We’re keeping notes on what
works and what doesn’t during the course
of these runs, because in the longer term,
as the teams become more experienced,
we expect to reduce the level of astronomer
support at the summit. Priority Visitor (PV)
mode was announced as a general possibility in the 2015A Call for Proposals, and we
are currently scheduling more such PV runs
for 2015A.
Fast Turnaround Program
Launched!
Early in the new year (January 2, 2015) we
were pleased to announce the release of
the first call for Fast Turnaround proposals. This pilot program, running at Gemini
North, gives users the opportunity to apply
for telescope time every month. Proposals
are reviewed by the PI (or a co-Investigator)
of other proposals submitted during the
same round, and successful programs can
be observed starting one month after the
proposal deadline. See the Fast Turnaround
web pages for full details about this innovative program.
During 2014B we have had a number of
these runs, both North and South. The first
was undertaken by Wes Fraser (Herzberg
Institute of Astrophysics, National Research
Council of Canada) and collaborators (including one taking advantage of “Bring One,
Get One”) in August 2014, covering between
14
GeminiFocus
January 2015