Update on MAROON-X

MAROON-X, recently constructed at the University of Chicago and integrated at Gemini North, is a new high-resolution (R~80,000) optical (500-900nm), bench-mounted, fiber-fed echelle spectrograph. This visiting instrument is expected to have the capability to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of mid- to late-M dwarfs using the radial velocity (RV) method. 

MAROON-X has completed one commissioning run so far, using 20 hours of telescope time over eight nights in December 2019. Two critical components, the simultaneous etalon calibration, and the stability tracing of the etalon, were unfortunately not ready at the time of the December run. Although the RV performance tests will not yet reflect the final performance of MAROON-X, the data were very promising. Because the instrument performed well, we will offer MAROON-X for general high-resolution spectroscopy in 2020B! 

At this time, precision RV measurements are not yet fully verified, and so will be offered in a shared-risk mode requiring collaboration with the instrument team. If you are interested in using the RV mode in 2020B, please contact Jacob Bean (jbean@astro.uchicago.edu). Proposal information for other spectroscopy projects can be found here.