2021 Gemini Science Observations

The US National Gemini Office has created an animation of science observations obtained in 2021 at both Gemini telescopes, using metadata publicly available through the Gemini Observatory Archive API. The animation below shows the footprint of the 3741 unique targets in 2021 observed color-coded by telescope. The final map highlights the uniqueness of the international Gemini Observatory in covering both hemispheres and essentially accessing the entire night sky.

 

 

Science data were acquired by at least one Gemini telescope on 338 nights (93%). Two notable gaps in the observations relate to the scheduled shutdowns (Aug 23 - Oct 3 for GN and Nov 2 - 22 GS) and science observations were performed on at least 20 nights per month at each telescope. The figure below shows a breakdown of science observations in 2021. Most of the on-target science time (76%) was spent observing the regular queue (Q), with Fast Turnaround (FT), Large and Long Programs (LP), and Director's Discretionary (DD) time combined for 23% of the time. The majority of science data were acquired with GMOS-N/S (59% of the time, or 1091 hours), followed by GRACES and the Near-IR instruments. For the two speckle imaging instruments, `Alopeke and Zorro, each frame counted by the Gemini Observatory Archive is a cube with one thousand or more images, so the real number of frames and exposure time are higher by at least a factor of 1000. The side panels show the RA and DEC distributions of the science targets. The coverage for right ascension is mostly complete, and there is a substantial overlap in declination close to the celestial equator. Overall, a very productive year for both telescopes!

 

 

All of the data to produce the animation and figure are publicly available through the Gemini Observatory Archive. The US NGO staff is happy to share data/code with anybody who may be interested. Any feedback can also be sent via usngo@noirlab.edu.

 

Updated on January 30, 2024, 12:43 pm