Announcements

29 August 2013: The September 2013 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. This issue includes information pertaining to the 2014A Call for Proposals, which are due September 26, 2013. On the Cover The cover image highlights an NOAO large survey program of galaxy clusters, using GMOS on Gemini-South. These clusters were initially identified by the South Pole Telescope (SPT): this spectroscopic survey will measure the growth of the largest structures in the Universe over time. The SPT surveys the cosmic microwave background for potential galaxy clusters, after which the GMOS survey determines velocity dispersion and mass of the clusters. This image shows six typical clusters: SPT significance maps on the left and color images from Magellan-II on the right (Bayliss et al, p.3)

27 August 2013: The first refereed science paper based on data from the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive optics System (GeMS) demonstrates the effective use of young, lower mass stars to determine the age of a star cluster. The work, led by Canada’s Tim Davidge, also brings into focus how young cluster stars “leave the nest” and enter the general population of stars in our galaxy. Recent observations using the powerful new GeMS adaptive optics system at Gemini South catch stars before they settle into their “regular lives” and reveal clues into the past and future of a low-mass star cluster – in this case, Haffner 16 - in our Milky Way Galaxy. The combination of Gemini’s large 8-meter aperture, its infrared sensitivity, and the latest in adaptive optics (which corrects for the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere), provide the key elements for the success of this work. The so-called “pre-main sequence” stars tend …

6 August 2013: Gemini observatory’s rapid-response allows for the detailed study of light from one of the most distant cases of a gamma-ray burst illuminating a galaxy ever observed. Thanks to Gemini’s unparalleled rapid-response capability, and ultra-sensitive nod-and-shuffle spectroscopy, radiation from a distant gamma-ray burst explosion clearly revealed a remarkable event near the edge of the observable universe. The Gemini optical (visible-light) spectrum provided critical evidence that the explosion happened in one of the most distant galaxies ever probed using the illumination provided by a gamma-ray burst (identified as GRB 130606A). This characterization is possible because the high-energy beacon of light from the GRB explosion must pass through interstellar gas within its young host galaxy (shown at left in the figure). The figure also illustrates how the light from the GRB is filtered by billions of light years of intergalactic gas that spans the space between us and the GRB (wide view, at …

31 May 2013: The CTIO 50th anniversary conference has ended, and was considered a huge success—scientifically diverse and strong, and the historic talks added personality, emotion and pride to the 50th year celebration. We were pleased to have a strong attendance (3 dozen) from the local Chilean Universities, as well as scientists from Europe, Asia, South America and of course the USA. Pictured above are the conference participants.

13 May 2013: Things happened quickly on the night of April 26-27 at the Gemini North control room on Mauna Kea. At 10:45 p.m. an alert arrived for what would later be described in a NASA press release as a “shockingly bright” gamma-ray burst (GRB). Using Gemini’s rapid response Target of Opportunity protocols, the team quickly obtained the first ground-based optical spectrum of the high-energy event. Captured within 90 minutes of detection by both Fermi’s Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and NASA’s Swift satellite, Gemini’s spectrum of the GRB’s afterglow surrendered a critical parameter: its distance; the object lies only about 3.6 billion light-years away, which is nearby for a GRB event. Michael Hoenig, who was executing observations with Gemini that night, slewed the telescope to the target almost immediately. “We pretty much dropped everything we were doing at that point,” Hoenig says, “Time is of the essence with GRBs!” Intense flashes of gamma …

9 April 2013: 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: GeminiFocus Each quarterly issue will bring you the latest news about Gemini, its scientific highlights, operations, instrumentation development, and education & outreach. Regular GeminiFocus readers will appreciate the new format's ability to provide more timely information for users while saving resources for Gemini and our planet. In addition, each year, the January issue will provide a year-in-review and be available in a very limited print-run for distribution to libraries and funding agencies. If you would like to be notified of future issues (or receive the annual hard-copy year-in-review issue), please contact us.

4 April 2013: The repair of the Blanco telescope’s f/8 secondary has been completed, and the figure of the repaired optic (shown at right) matches the measurement after it was refigured in 1993 (at left). The small circle in the center of the 2013 image represents the diameter of the repair. The repaired mirror will be returned to Chile, where the repairs to the mirror cell are underway. Initial re-integration of the cell on the telescope is scheduled for late June, with first light with the repaired mirror planned for August.

28 March 2013: Do all globular clusters within a galaxy share a common history? Multiple histories could indicate that different processes drive a galaxy's fundamental development at different times. Juan Carlos Forte (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina) and colleagues used the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) to study over 500 globular clusters in the galaxy M87. Their observations indeed point to such complexity, revealing multiple episodes of star formation. Globular clusters indirectly reveal the star formation history of their host galaxy, and one of their fundamental properties is the metallicity, or abundance of elements more massive than helium. Many globular clusters (GCs) are old, even to the point of challenging other measurements of the age of the universe, but detailed observations can show structure in the distribution of their observed colors. The outstanding question is whether this is evidence of real non-uniformity in the underlying history and metallicity distribution or merely …

14 March 2013: “Do you think space aliens are real?” Gemini Observatory’s Director Markus Kissler-Patig asks a class of students. His question is part of Gemini’s Journey through the Universe (JttU) program where dozens of scientists and educators share their work and, most importantly, inspire young Hawai‘i Island students. “I think the students in our classrooms today are the ones who will answer the big questions we are asking, such as what, and possibly who, is out there on all of those planets we are only starting to discover now,” says Kissler-Patig. Now in its ninth year, JttU wraps up its annual “Journey Week” on March 15th. During this week Gemini staff joined over 50 other scientists, researchers, and educators in classrooms across East Hawai‘i (see photos in this feature). “The goal of this program is to inspire our keiki,” says the program’s manager and Gemini’s education and outreach leader Janice Harvey. “Even …

28 February 2013: The March 2013 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. This issue includes information pertaining to the 2013B Call for Proposals, which are due March 28, 2013. On the Cover This cover presents a collage of the past, present, and future of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile in celebration of the observatory’s 50th anniversary.

14 February 2013: Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) observations lead to surprising results on the nature of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). Time-series near-infrared spectra of SN 2011fe hint that more SNe Ia harbor unprocessed carbon than previously believed, and what we thought was the main driver of the luminosity-decline rate Phillips relation may not be correct. Understanding the true nature of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is a linchpin of contemporary cosmology. Specifically, these explosions are critical for tracking the expansion history and acceleration of our universe. Commonly called “dark energy,” the discovery of this universal acceleration was the basis for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Now, researchers using the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS), at the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, have taken a major leap forward in understanding SNe Ia with the first detection of unprocessed carbon in near-infrared spectra of a normal Type Ia supernova. The supernova (geminiann13004a), …

13 February 2013: On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 Australian High School Senior Ryan Soares had stars in his eyes during a ceremony celebrating his winning selection for the 2012 Australian Gemini Schools Imaging contest. In describing his entry, which features a group of three beautiful galaxies, he said that he chose the grouping because the galaxies, “…had never been imaged as a group by a large professional telescope such as Gemini South.” Ryan was also “thinking big” with this project, by suggesting that the telescope should take not one but two images and “stitch” them together to capture the panorama of the three galaxies. “I thought that if they let me do this, in future other students could propose other big, exciting regions of sky to study,” he said. This approach was challenging due to the limited time available (about one hour total) for the observations. Each of the two images required three …

11 February 2013: Miss Tohono O’odham 2013 and her court visited the NOAO booth at the 75th Annual Tohono O’odham Rodeo & Fair, Feb 1-3. Shown in the picture: (L2R) Katy Garmany, Lori Allen, 1st Attendant Jaylene Wood, 2nd Attendant Raven Johnson, and Miss Tohono O’odham Nation Hon’mana Sekteoma. Jaylene Wood sang an O’odham traditional song describing an eagle soaring over Kitt Peak. See an article about the Fair in the March NOAO Newsletter.

1 February 2013: Using high signal-to-noise optical spectroscopy from Gemini, and Hubble Space Telescope imaging of three intermediate redshift galaxy clusters, Gemini astronomers Inger Jørgensen and Kristin Chiboucas have shed new light on galaxy evolution. The team’s paper, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal, shows that the mass to light ratios of the galaxies indicate that low-mass galaxies have experienced more recent star formation than high-mass galaxies. Both the mass-to-light ratios and the Balmer lines (hydrogen lines) can be used to estimate the ages of the galaxies. However, the Balmer lines indicate that all of the galaxies are very old, leading to a contradiction between the two methods of age determination. Furthermore, the metal lines (or metallicity, an indication of the presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium which are formed in previous generations of stars) show that there are metallicity differences when comparing the clusters. This is in contradiction with …

3 January 2013: The Gemini Observatory Board of Directors opens 2013 with new leadership and a number of membership changes. The changes reflect regular term expirations as well as the departure of the United Kingdom from the partnership and subsequent adjustments to partner shares. The Board’s new Chair, Michael Balogh (University of Waterloo) replaces Larry Ramsey (Pennsylvania State University) who provided forward-looking leadership and sound management skills during the previous three years, a period of significant change and transition at Gemini. Balogh is joined by the newly appointed Vice Chair, Karl Gebhardt (University of Texas Austin). Together, Balogh and Gebhardt will lead the Board in guiding the Observatory through the next phase. Following the UK departure, the board composition has readjusted to reflect the new partner shares. The two positions held by René Walterbos (New Mexico State University) and You-Hua Chu (University of Illinois), both reaching the end of their term, have been …

7 December 2012: Despite a challenging global economic climate, and often drastic funding cuts in government-funded science and technology research, a recent milestone for the Gemini Observatory sees the observatory moving forward until the end of this decade with its strong international partnership intact. However, a potential challenge lies ahead with funding uncertainty in Australia after 2015 says Gemini’s newly appointed Director Dr. Markus Kissler-Patig. “Although this might present an obstacle, it’s one with many possible solutions even if Australia cannot remain a full partner in Gemini,” said Kissler-Patig. It is in this environment that in September 2012 the Gemini Board held a retreat to discuss among other items the future of the Gemini partnership in the years 2016 to 2018, beyond the current international agreement - which extends through the end of 2015. Following this retreat, Gemini’s regularly-scheduled Board meeting, held in La Serena, Chile from November 14 to 16 resulted in …

30 November 2012: Using joint observations from Gemini South, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO/VLT), and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), a team of astronomers has discovered a spectacular and very rare phenomenon in galaxies. It is interpreted as a light echo from an earlier, very active, quasar phase that has since shut down. Because of these objects' unique characteristics, they appear green in some datasets giving them the colorful moniker “green-bean galaxies.” As described in the ESO press release today (December 5, 2012), Gemini astronomer Mischa Schirmer first identified an example of this odd class of object in CFHT imaging data –– a distant galaxy denoted J224024.1−092748 or J2240 (geminiann12015a). After investigating the new object with the VLT, and confirming it with Gemini South, Schirmer and his team went on to observe several additional candidates with the Gemini telescope. These spectroscopic observations confirmed that another 16 candidates share the same characteristics …

19 November 2012: A group of British astronomers, led by Neale P. Gibson of the University of Oxford, used the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) to probe the atmosphere of a transiting extrasolar planet identified as WASP-29b. Previously, measurements of this sort were only possible from space, due to distortions from the Earth’s atmosphere. Now, thanks to advances in instrumentation and data processing, it is possible to perform these difficult observations using ground-based telescopes like Gemini. ESO’s Very Large Telescope was the first to attempt such observations and this work by Gibson et al. demonstrates the same extraordinary capability, and required instrumental stability, with GMOS on Gemini. The study of exoplanets is a rapidly advancing discipline with more than 800 planets detected beyond our solar system so far. The first of these were detected in 1988 and about 600 have been found in just the last decade. Another 2000 are expected to be revealed …

2 November 2012: Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and Chile’s Cerro Pachón host some of the world’s most powerful astronomical observatories - with capabilities found nowhere else. Now, with a new sharing agreement inked between the 8-meter Gemini and Subaru telescopes on these sites, astronomers from around the world have even more avenues to explore and understand our universe. The new time exchange agreement between Gemini and Subaru makes the entire suite of instrumentation available at each observatory open to any astronomer in the countries of the U.S., Japan, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. “Opening up our major research infrastructures to each other’s community sends a strong signal,” said Gemini Observatory Director Markus Kissler-Patig. “In a world in which communication is made easy, the future of science lies in the concept of crowdsourcing, where we share and distribute our brainpower and creativity globally,” said Kissler-Patig. “Both the Subaru and Gemini communities will profit immensely …

7 September 2012: Exploding stars (supernovae) offer the most precise measurements of large cosmic distances. Of these, when observed at near-infrared wavelengths, type Ia supernovae provide the greatest precision as “standard candles” for measuring cosmological distances. Observations of type Ia supernovae at optical wavelengths are frequently used for this purpose and are the basis for the research leading to the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. These supernovae have intrinsically variable luminosities at optical wavelengths, however, so the luminosities must be standardized empirically. For example, this can be accomplished by using the relationship that supernovae which fade away more slowly are brighter. Optical light also suffers from the complication of attenuation by dust anywhere along the line of sight, from the supernova’s host galaxy to our vantage point in the Milky Way. To circumvent these difficulties, Rob Barone-Nugent (University of Melbourne, Australia) and colleagues show in a recent publication in the Monthly Notices of …