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Gemini e-Newscast February 2021
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At Gemini North, operations remain unchanged. Daily COVID case counts on Hawai`i Island have trended consistently downward since the beginning of the year. However, travel restrictions, including the need for a pre-test before leaving the mainland, remain in place and we are not accepting visiting observers in the coming semester.
Operations at Gemini South have continued uninterrupted, strictly adhering to the procedures and restrictions because of COVID. Case counts of COVID have gone up in the La Serena Chile region, and more stringent measures have been put in place by the authorities as a result.
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Solar System’s Most Distant Known Object is Indeed Farfarout
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Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva
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With the help of the international Gemini Observatory and other ground-based telescopes, astronomers have confirmed that a faint object nicknamed “Farfarout'' is indeed the most distant object yet found in our Solar System. Recently given the provisional designation 2018 AG37 from the International Astronomical Union, this object was first spotted in January 2018. “At that time we did not know the object’s orbit as we only had the Subaru discovery observations over 24 hours, but it takes years of observations to get an object's orbit around the Sun,” explained co-discoverer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution of Science. Sheppard and his colleagues, David Tholen of the University of Hawai‘i and Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University, spent the next few years tracking the object with several telescopes, including Gemini North, in order to determine its precise orbit. The team has confirmed that Farfarout currently lies 132 astronomical units from the Sun. Read the full press release here.
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2nd Issue of The Mirror Published
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The second (January 2021) edition of NOIRLab’s The Mirror is now available. This semi-annual, magazine-style publication focuses on news of interest to the broad NOIRLab community, showcasing the science, technology, and developments from Gemini Observatory and the other NOIRLab Programs: Community Science and Data Center, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory, and Vera C. Rubin Observatory Operations.
This second issue features articles on recent scientific results, speckle imaging capabilities at Gemini, a major data release from the GOGREEN Large Program, progress on the Observatory Control System (OCS) and DRAGONS data reduction software, and developments from the other NOIRLab Programs as well. It also includes perspectives on the peer review process, inclusion and diversity in astronomy, and an overview of current outreach and community events including the recent SATCON1 workshop on the impact of satellite constellations on astronomy.
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GHOST Progress on Cerro Pachón
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Key components of the GHOST spectrograph arriving at Gemini South in January 2021. It recently became possible to transport equipment to the summit of Cerro Pachón, where the containers were unloaded into the Gemini South telescope’s receiving area. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
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The Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) instrument is expected to play a vital role in the research output of Gemini South in the 2020s. GHOST is built by a collaboration between Australian Astronomical Optics, the Australian National University, and the National Research Council Canada’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Center. It is designed to be efficient, versatile, and to have wide wavelength coverage. This means GHOST can be used for a broad range of applications which include understanding the chemical evolution of the Universe and our galaxy as well as the confirmation and characterization of exoplanet systems. This new instrument will also provide crucial follow-up of interesting targets from many ongoing and future surveys like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
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A Dual Anonymous Review Process Implemented to Fast Turnaround
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Gemini North and South are accepting proposals for the Fast Turnaround (FT) program. Starting from this February cycle, we are implementing a Dual Anonymous Review Process (DARP). Please find more details in the current call for proposals linked here. The upcoming deadline ends at 23:59 Hawai‘i Standard Time on 28 February 2021. Successful proposals from this cycle will stay active in the Queue from April 2021 until June 2021. Please check the telescope schedule for Gemini North and South and their instrument availability for the April-May-June cycle. The FT program has been used to conduct pilot studies, complete observations for existing data sets, follow-up on newly discovered objects, and much more. Proposing teams are typically notified within a few weeks of the deadline, and data for successful programs can be obtained as early as a week or two after that. For more details please check the FT Call for Proposals page here: http://www.gemini.edu/observing/phase-i/ft/ft-cfp. Updates are provided on the FT News page.
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User’s Committee for Gemini Report Now Available
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The 2020 UCG meeting was different than usual in what has become the typical remote pandemic style. Gemini thanks the members of the UCG for their perseverance and willingness to contribute to Gemini’s wellbeing even in these difficult times. The report from their meeting is now available.
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