GeminiFocus January 2015 | Page 16

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