Gemini Observatory events at the 235th Winter AAS

Gemini Observatory invites the community to learn about the latest opportunities for a broad range of science with Gemini’s twin 8.1 m telescopes located on Cerro Pachón in Chile and Maunakea in Hawai‘i. Gemini’s agile queue operations, broad suite of optical and infrared facility and visiting instruments, and diverse proposal opportunities support a variety on-going programs, including time-domain astronomy, high-spatial and high-spectral resolution studies, exoplanets, and extragalactic astronomy. We will present the key points of our recently released Strategic Scientific Plan for Gemini Observatory and provide an update on the Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA) Program. The GEMMA Program is funded by a major new award from the National Science Foundation in support of two central elements of our Strategic Plan: a state-of-the-art wide-field AO system for Gemini North, and improvements to the Observatory’s ability to respond rapidly to transient events in the time-domain era and quickly deliver science-ready data to our users. We will describe progress on Gemini’s facility instruments now under development: GHOST, a high-throughput, high-spectral resolution (R~50-75,000) spectrograph with continuous coverage at 0.36-0.95 microns; and SCORPIO, an 8-channel optical/IR imager and spectrograph with simultaneous coverage from 0.38-2.5 microns. In addition, two new facility instruments are in their early design stages: GNAOI and IGRINS-2 (both tentative names). GNAOI will be a new infrared imager to accompany our new adaptive optics system and Gemini North while IGRINS-2 is an update of the successful visitor instrument, IGRINS, being built for Gemini by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. We will also describe our Visiting Instrument and instrument upgrade programs and opportunities for the community to engage with Gemini development efforts. Additionally, we will discuss our education and outreach in our local communities in Hawai‘i and Chile.

We will present the first science results and technical achievements in the development of the Astrophysical Events Observatories Network (AEON). The initial AEON partner observatories are the Gemini, Las Cumbres, NOAO, and SOAR. We will discuss how observation requests for the SOAR 4.1m can now be programmatically submitted and queue-scheduled through the LCO network infrastructure, thanks to recent upgrades at both facilities, and how this enables a range of science. We will demonstrate the advantages offered by Target and Observation Manager systems (TOMs) in optimizing any observing program. LCO has developed the TOM Toolkit package to make it easy for astronomers to build a TOM for their own science, and we will update the community on the new functionality offered by the TOM Toolkit, including built-in interfaces for a number of observing facilities, brokers and data archives.

As part of the “Gemini In The Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA)” program, funded by a multi-million dollar award from the National Science Foundation, Gemini is designing a new queue-operated multi-conjugate adaptive optics (AO) facility for the 8-m Gemini-North telescope. By delivering an AO-corrected field-of-view of 2 arc minutes to feed the next generation of AO-assisted Gemini-North instruments, GNAO will enable a broad range of science cases. Please join us to learn about the GNAO project and future opportunities for scientific exploration with the GNAO facility.

9:30 Gaetano Sivo
      "GNAO - an MCAO system for the Gemini North Telescope"
9:50 Morten Andersen
      "Science cases for GNAO"
10:10 Jessica Lu
      "Understanding the Birth, Death, and Afterlife of Stars Using Astrometry"
10:30 John Blakeslee
      "Probing the Time Domain with GNAO"
10:50 Roberto Abraham
      "Science with the Gemini IR Multi-Object Spectrograph"
11:10 Michael Pierce
      "GNAO astrometry as it pertains to cosmological parallaxes"

This splinter session focuses on recent solar system and exoplanet science from the Gemini large and long program (LLP). Gemini large and long proposals can be submitted on any topic. However, recently a number of proposals have been on solar system and exoplanet astronomy. A variety of these programs will be reviewed in 20 minute talks during this session. The planned range of topics includes observations of planet formation, characterization of dusty, rocky, and icy debris in the solar system and in exoplanetary systems, and investigations of the structure of exoplanet atmospheres. The programs use a variety of Gemini instrumentation including GMOS, GPI, and AO imaging.

Please join us for a panel discussion by the Directors of the Maunakea Observatories to discuss the present and future of astronomy on Maunakea.