Gemini Visiting Instrument Program: What’s new for 2018A?

Gemini has a very active Visiting Instruments Program, encouraging teams large and small to bring their own instruments for use on the Gemini telescopes. These instruments are frequently made available to the community as well, with the generous support of the instrument teams. In any given semester, you can look at the call for proposals and see what exciting capabilities may be offered for a limited time using these Visiting Instruments.

For 2018A, the Visiting Instruments available at Gemini South will be:

• IGRINS: The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer is a high-resolution (R~45,000), single-setting, 1.45-2.5 micron echelle spectrometer, built in a partnership between the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute and the University of Texas at Austin. IGRINS will be available for observing in the second half of the semester.
• DSSI: The Differential Speckle Survey Instrument provides diffraction-limited optical imaging (FWHM~0.02" at 650nm) of targets as faint as V~16-17 in 2 channels over a ~2.8 - 5.6 arcsecond field-of-view. You can propose to use this popular visiting instrument which will be available during the first half of semester 2018A.

The Visiting Instruments at Gemini North in 2018A will be:

• ‘Alopeke: The newest addition to the DSSI family, ‘Alopeke (Hawaiian for fox) will have a larger format than previous versions, and feature high time resolution photometry over a 30-arcsecond field with modern EMCCD cameras as well as speckle imaging.
• TEXES: Another frequent visitor, the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph is a high resolution (R ~ 4,000-100,000) mid-infrared (4.5-25 micron) spectrometer. This instrument will most likely be available toward the end of June.
• POLISH2: This high sensitivity optical polarimeter has been used extensively at Lick Observatory and is now coming to Gemini North. Rather than waveplates, POLISH2 makes use of two photoelastic modulators (PEMs) to achieve extremely high precision.

Don’t miss your chance to use these exciting instruments while they are on Gemini in 2018! More information about these visiting instruments can be found in the 2018A call for proposals.

For questions about bringing an instrument to Gemini, or more information about the Visiting Instrument Program, email gemini-vip@gemini.edu.