First Results from GeMS/GSAOI Observations of the Globular Cluster NGC 3201


Wednesday, 16 December 2015 9:30 a.m. — 10 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
STEPHANIE MONTY (University of Victoria, Canada and Gemini South Intern)

The Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System, or GeMS, on the Gemini South telescope is a unique instrument and the only of it's kind currentlyon a 8m-class telescope. GeMS, when used in tandem with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI), can produce near diffraction limited images in the near-infrared. The pristine image quality produced by the instruments has previously allowed for the deepest photometry of crowded fields ever to be performed from a ground-based telescope. GeMS utilizes five laser guide stars along with three natural guide stars to achieve a two arcmin corrected field of view, with GSAOI taking advantage of an 85" x 85" area of this corrected field. Taking advantage of the high spacial resolution provided by GeMS/GSAOI the inner regions of three galactic globular clusters were imaged during the 2013B and 2014A semesters in the Ks, J, H and Z near-infrared bands. The challenges associated with thereduction and analysis of MCAO data will be discussed, along with the initial results from the study of one of these clusters, NGC 3201.