haps more importantly , to obtain feedback directly from a broad community of users throughout Gemini ’ s participating countries .
As an annual event , we also hit the road touring North America to visit various astronomy departments at several universities and share information while learning more about their interests . This year , Heidi Hammel ( Executive Vice President of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy ; AURA ) and I visited six campuses in five days . These included the University of Maryland , Penn State , University of Texas Austin , Texas A & M , and the University of California ( both Berkeley and Santa Cruz ). We thoroughly enjoyed our visits and learned a lot about these thriving departments and their interests and wishes for Gemini . It also gave us the opportunity to present some of AURA ’ s other activities and point our users to some of the new opportunities at Gemini . ( For example , have you tried the Fast Turnaround mode to submit proposals ? Or considered a visitor instrument to bring ?) If you would like us to tour your institution next year , please feel free to drop me a note . that other groups are contributing ! Currently we offer four of these in the regular Call for Proposals .
Other Exciting News
Among the less visible but important news , AURA is extending the limited-term partnership agreements with Korea and Australia . The Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute ( KASI ) is the contact for Korean astronomers , and is expanding its agreement to use Gemini into the years 2017 and 2018 ; and Astronomy Australia Limited ( AAL ) has renewed its yearly agreement for 2017 , to continue providing the Australian community with access to Gemini .
As usual , do not miss our latest scientific results in this edition of GeminiFocus , some of which made the front page of national news . Whether it is exploring frozen exoplanets , or characterizing dark matter galaxies , we are proud to see a wide variety of trail-blazing results continuously streaming out of Gemini ; we are true to our purpose : Exploring the Universe , Sharing its Wonders !
Visitor Instruments and Other Support
The feedback we ’ ve received from our outreach efforts have been exceedingly fruitful . The community especially supports our vision for continuing to complement Gemini observing with visitor instruments . Many groups in our community have already seized the opportunity and brought , or are planning to bring , instruments to Gemini ; the list of interested parties is growing , with over 10 visitor instruments already in the queue for the next 3-5 years . We can handle a few more , so feel free to consider this possibility ( for more details , see this website ). If you don ’ t have an instrument to offer up , simply consider using visitor instruments
Markus Kissler-Patig is the Gemini Observatory Director . He can be reached at : mkissler @ gemini . edu
2 GeminiFocus October 2016