tive cross-training program with other AURA
centers in Chile.
New Archive Imminent!
The new Gemini Observatory Archive will be
launched in October. Developed in-house as
a project led by Observatory Scientist Paul
Hirst, the user interface is quite different
from the archive at the Canadian Astronomy
Data Centre (CADC) which it replaces. However, one of the most significant changes is
“under the hood”. The archive is now being
hosted by Amazon Web Services and stored
on the Cloud. This cost-effective solution is
well suited to our globally distributed user
community. The change is imminent, so
keep watching!
GRACES First Science
GRACES has moved from development into
operations; see the article by André-Nicolas
Chené on the commissioning and first science data, starting on page 14 of this issue.
Figures 4.
Data from the Gemini
South secondary mirror
sensors at the time of
the September 16th
earthquake.
Gemini South and the Chilean
Earthquake
As you’re probably aware, Gemini South was
affected by the large (magnitude ~8.3)
earthquake which struck Chile on September 16th. At the time of the quake,
Gemini South was closed due to sever
weather (see news item above). Since
systems were powered up, the secondary mirror system effectively acted as a seismometer. The picture here
shows the secondary oscillations in
response to the early arriving P waves,
followed some 20 seconds later by the
major shock of the main quake. As this
issue goes to e-press Gemini South is
almost completely recovered from the
earthquake, and is back on the sky doing normal science operations.
October 2015
GeminiFocus
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