Consortia responding to instrument requests from the Observatory are no longer
bound to the Observatory’s available budget, but can be compensated with telescope
time for any cash or in-kind contributions.
Finally, the decision and procurement paths
were simplified to avoid the significant overhead often created by Gemini’s complicated
governance structure.
Overall, we hope that these changes will
encourage many instrumentation groups
across Gemini’s large and diverse partnership and beyond to engage in instrument
building for the Observatory in win-win
partnerships (for more details on how this
process is being applied now, see the update
on page 18 of this issue on the Gen4#3 instrument procurement currently underway).
New Operational Modes Too
On the operations side, the new Large and
Long Programs mode has resulted in the
selection of seven programs that made it
through the heavily oversubscribed process (the new mode saw an oversubscription factor of nearly six!) We look forward to
welcoming the first observers for these programs, which, by default, will be carried out
in the new “visitor priority observing” mode
(available). In this mode, classical observers visit for longer periods than they have
time allocated for their programs and are
able to choose when to optimally observe
their targets.
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GeminiFocus
All observers should not forget that we endeavor to increase the use of Gemini to train
and motivate young researchers. To this end,
we also now offer the “bring-one, get-one
(almost) free” plan; subsidizing, with $2000,
for each observing visit of a student accompanying a more experienced classical observer (available here).
Finally, while we eagerly await the first results from a very successful early science run
with the Gemini Planet Imager — 13 short
programs were observed in April (available);
you don’t want to miss this issue’s science
feature article where a Canadian team, led
by Maire-Ève Naud, used more conventional
techniques to detect a planet some 2000 astronomical units from its host