Gemini North Shutdown Complete

The Gemini North telescope completed a successful maintenance shutdown that began on January 22, returning to science on the night of February 2. During the shutdown many key systems underwent maintenance and/or upgrades, with the most significant work focusing on the acquisition and guiding (A&G) system and the installation of sensors to help measure vibrations and further improve high-resolution adaptive optics imaging. Safety mechanisms were added to the A&G and to the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, to prevent known mechanical failure modes. We were not able to complete a planned recoating of the primary mirror, after severe freezing on the summit ruptured a coolant water line inside the coating chamber. This coating work will be postponed until later in 2013.

Engineers working on the acquisition and guiding unit.