Shutdowns Complete at Both North and South

(Right) Shutter drive box being moved at Gemini North in Hawai‘i. (Left) Acquisition and Guiding flexure rig testing during the recent shutdown at Gemini South in Chile.

Parallel shutdowns at Gemini North and South are now complete, and both telescopes are back on sky and routine operations have resumed. In Chile, shutdown staff tackled a long-standing noisy detector problem with the GMOS On-Instrument Wavefront Sensor. This successful repair has resulted in significant performance improvements which is demonstrated almost every night. In Hawai‘i, the team’s primary work focused on replacing the bottom shutter “XY” drivebox (with an existing spare). The shutdown provided an idea time to complete maintenance of the Acquisition and Guiding (A&G) system, GMOS-North, and NIRI. The Gemini North shutdown was originally planned for October, but was moved forward due to failure of the drivebox.