The participating partners — United States,
Canada, Australia, and Argentina — are
contributing up to 20 percent of their time
to a common pool for these programs. As
a guideline, LPs either require significantly
more time than a partner typically approves
for a single program, or are extend over two
to six semesters, or both.
Large programs are expected to promote
collaborations across the partnership’s communities, have significant scientific impact,
and, normally, provide a homogeneous data
set potentially for more general use. PIs must
be based in an institution of one of the participating partner countries, though there is
no restriction on Co-Investigator affiliation.
With the LPs, Gemini will also introduce a
new observing mode, “priority visiting observing.” In this mode, the PI or team member comes to Gemini prepared to observe
either their own program, if the conditions
are sufficiently good, or execute approved
queue programs if the conditions are too
poor for the LP.
The LP will be charged only for time devoted
to the program, and additional observations
may be made by Gemini staff during the semester. With this mode and that of traditional
“classical” observing, we encourage the benefits of being directly involved with the program
team in observing, and their interaction with Gemini staff who
also support the program.
approved programs will be reviewed annually. There may be additional partner-specific
procedures or requirements, as well. Complete details will be available with the Announcement of Opportunity, which Gemini
expects to release in early December 2013.
Proposals will be due around the usual 2014B
deadline at the end of March 2014. Instruments and observing modes that are fully
commissioned at the time of the announcement of opportunity will be open for LPs; a
specific list will be provided at that time.
Update on Gemini North
Shutdown
As this issue goes to e-press, an extensive
planned shutdown at Gemini North, which
started on September12th, has ended and
the telescope is back on the sky doing science. The primary objective of the shutdown, to recoat the 8-meter primary mirror;
the mirror now has unprecedented success
with unprecedented reflectivity (blue: 470
nm = 93.0 %; green: 530 nm = 95.0 %; red: 650
nm = 95.2 %; near-infrared 880 nm = 96. 8