GRACES, GHOS, and
the Long-range Plan
Figure 5.
Contrast vs. radius
measured from
the two images in
Figure 3. The noise
floor is set by the
short exposures
(2 seconds) .
31
exectuted that work in April 2012 and anticipate System Characterization to resume on
May 21st — in preparation for Acceptance
Testing, now scheduled to begin in June. We
expect the instrument to arrive at Gemini
South in the first quarter of 2013.
By the end of March, the project reached a
significant milestone: its first end-to-end images. These were taken with artificial light
sent into GPI from the telescope simulator
(with the light corrected by the AO system),
then stabilized behind the coronographic
mask by CAL, and finally recorded on the IFS.
The left image in Figure 4 (see previous page)
shows an IFS H-band image taken without
the coronographic mask. The right image
shows the same configuration but with the
coronographic mask; the surrounding dots
are there for calibration purposes. Note that
we expect the light attenuation from the
central core will be even higher now that the
IFS has been remediated. Figure 5 shows the
Contrast Ratio curve of the two measured
images in Figure 4 using a Gemini telescope
simulator. These reached a contrast of ~ 106
from 0.2 arcsecond outward. The Contrast
Ratio will be remeasured once System Characterization resumes.
GeminiFocus
GRACES is a joint project
with the Canada-FranceHawaii Telescope (CFHT)
to bring high-resolution
spectroscopy capability to
Gemini (R=55,000 in staronly mode, and R=32,000 in
star and sky mode). The first
“prototype” phase is aimed
at confirming experimentally the excellent throughput
values determined in the
theoretical analysis of coupling Gemini to the ESPaDOnS bench spectrograph
at CFHT; sensitivity should
be as good or better than Keck’s HIRES performance for for wavelengths of between 6001000 nm).
The optical fiber link between the two buildings (270 meters total fiber length) has been
designed and is under procurement and some
of the preliminary testing of the installation
technique is also underway. Design work for
the injection module from GMOS and coupling into the ESPaDOnS is also underway at
HIA. We expect HIA to deliver the hardware by
year’s end and commissioning to be completed by February 2013. We also anticipate a release of the instrument for shared-risk usage
in 2013A (no data reduction will be offered in
this Phase 1).
GHOS is the future Gemini High-resolution
Optical Spectrograph for Gemini South. The
baseline instrument requirements include simultaneous wavelength coverage between
370-1000 nm with a resolution of 40,000
(20,000 to 60,000 goal). GHOS (and GRACES)
were launched after a call for white papers in
July 2010. Three teams (Anglo-Australian Observatory, Center for Astrophysics and Space
Astronomy, and HIA) were selected in Octo-
June2012