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GMOS Lick standard spectra available
Phase I Checklist
A number of common errors are made by PIs when creating phase I files writing their technical justifications. The PI should consider the following checklist when writing the Phase I proposal.
Now Quarterly, April Issue of GeminiFocus Available
The Gemini Observatory newsletter, GeminiFocus, is now quarterly and available as both a downloadable PDF and in an on-line e-reader format compatible with desktop browsers, tablets, e-readers, and smart phones.
Read this issue by visiting: www.gemini.edu/geminifocus
Target Acquisition
GNIRS contains a "flip-in" mirror that bypasses the dispersive optics (i.e., gratings and prisms) and provides a long and somewhat narrow acquisition field. This allows precise positioning of an object in a slit without moving the grating, prism, or camera. The choice of acquisition filter is independent of the wavelength of the science observations.
Optomechanical Layout
The opto-mechanical layout of FLAMINGOS-2 is shown above. The instrument is fed with either the standard (non-AO) f/16 beam from the secondary, or in the future an MCAO corrected f/32 beam. Light enters the first (MOS) dewar, and comes to a focus at the mask plane.
There is an optical OIWFS which is operated cold (and thus does not glow in the beam) and uses a small pickoff mirror to guide on a 6"x6" field containing the guidestar.
Searching for the True Colors of M87's Globular Clusters
Figure 1.
Updated 2013B PIT fixes guide star bug
A bug in PIT 2013.2.1 prevents the calculation of guide star availability for the given target, instrument configuration, and weather conditions. This does not prevent proposal submission but it is confusing and undesirable. This problem has been fixed with the release of PIT 2013.2.2 on March 26, 2013. The new PIT can be downloaded from here. The guide star likelihoods will be calculated automatically once a program is loaded into the new PIT.
Mask-making Software
The current versions of the GMOS Mask Making software are v0.304, released in April 2011 for Linux and Mac OS X and v0.22 for Solaris. There is little difference in functionality between v0.304 and v0.22 but v0.304 is built to work on more recent Linux and Mac distributions and it includes visualization of tilted slits, restrictions on slit tilts (-45 < tilt < 45), and some bug fixes. Please use the current version for your OS for your mask designs.