IGRINS-2 Successful System Verification Run

Thanks to the collaboration between the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and the International Gemini Observatory, a milestone in the expansion of the high-resolution near-infrared spectroscopic capabilities of the Gemini North telescope has recently been achieved. Following its first light in October 2023, the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph 2 (IGRINS-2) has now completed observations for its System Verification run during 17-23 July.

Despite losing three full nights due to high humidity at the summit of Maunakea, IGRINS-2 successfully collected data from a wide variety of astronomical objects, including a supernova remnant, a planetary nebula, an exoplanet, young stellar objects, binary stars, supergiant stars, magnetic chemically peculiar stars, metal-poor stars, and a pre-explosion recurrent nova. A sneak peek from one of the System Verification nights has been shared with the community through the Shadow the Scientist initiative and is available at this link.

This extensive dataset tested the various modes of the instrument and is currently being analyzed by the System Verification Early Science Team, which includes both Gemini personnel and community representatives. The raw data from this run will be released in a month, and the fully reduced data will be made available to the Gemini community at a later date. IGRINS-2 is expected to be available to the community in shared-risk mode during the 2025A semester.