Gemini North Shutdown Complete

We are happy to announce that the Gemini North shutdown to repair the failed dome drive finished earlier than planned and we started the on-sky checks on August 29. General post-shutdown system checks have been completed. Instrument checkouts are also required because of maintenance work done in parallel with the repair. These are being executed as tropical storms and hurricanes permit. Currently only GNIRS is ready for science use. PIs of ToO programs should refer to the Current Instrument Configurations web page to check the availability of the instruments before triggering any observations.

Please note that during our shutdown we found another shutter drive that is showing signs of deterioration. Because of this we have increased the lower limit for the telescope elevation to 27 degrees, meaning that science targets cannot be observed at an airmass higher than 2.2.