Mauna Kea
Gemini North, Mauna Kea, Hawai'i
Welcome to Gemini's Public Pages Cerro Pachon
Gemini South, Cerro Pachón, Chile
Gemini Logo The Universe is about to get a whole lot clearer! Gemini Logo

Gemini South Dedication Page
Gemini North Dedication Page
Virtual Tour of Gemini North
Current Picture of the Enclosure

The Gemini Observatory is an international partnership comprised of two 8.1-meter telescopes (each telescope has a main mirror over 26 feet across.) One telescope is located on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, and the other on Chile's Cerro Pachón. The name Gemini comes from the mythological twins, whose stars are visible to both telescopes.

US Flag

United States
of America

UK Flag

United Kingdom

Canadian Flag

Canada

Chilean Flag

Chile

Australian Flag

Australia

Argentine Flag

Argentina

Brazilian Flag

Brazil

The flags above represent all of the countries that have joined the Gemini partnership. Astronomers in each country are allotted observing time in proportion to their country's contribution.
Star Trails at Gemini
Star Trails at Gemini (Photo courtesy Richard Wainscoat)
By building the telescopes on Mauna Kea (elevation 13,824 ft/4214 m) in Hawai'i and Cerro Pachón (elevation 8895 ft/2737 m) in central Chile, both the northern and southern skies are fully accessible to these scopes. Both sites also offer high percentages of clear weather and excellent atmospheric conditions for all types of astronomical studies. Take a look at a "real-time" image of Gemini North!

In addition to Gemini's strategic positioning on our globe, each of the Gemini telescopes is designed to provide some of the sharpest images of any telescope on (or even above) our planet. Engineers and scientists have gone to great lengths to optimize Gemini for infrared studies and most researchers agree that Gemini provides the best infrared views of our universe! If you want to learn more about how Gemini accomplishes this, explore the topics below.

Gemini's Telescope
Deep Sky Montage With the advanced technology and unprecedented capabilities of Gemini, the sky's the limit! Gemini's superb optical and infrared capabilities allow it to probe areas of our universe with more clarity than ever before. Included in Gemini's studies are regions where stars and planets are forming deep within cool gas clouds. Gemini's ability to penetrate clouds of galactic dust and gas take Gemini to the core of our own galaxy and others - to provide new insights on the violent events that dwell in these areas. In many instances, the Gemini telescopes outperform even the Hubble Space Telescope in both clarity and data collection.

Finally, keep watching this site for new features including an exciting virtual tour of Gemini North!

Other links of interest:

AURA Logo Gemini is an international partnership managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. NSF Logo


Return to Gemini's Home Page For more information contact the Gemini Public Information and Outreach Office at pmichaud@gemini.edu.


Peter Michaud, pmichaud@gemini.edu / April 17, 2003. Copyright, 2003 Gemini Observatory