Gemini Observatory operates twin 8m telescopes, one located in the Southern hemisphere, on Cerro Pachón in Chile, and one located in the Northern hemisphere, on Maunakea in Hawai’i. Currently, the Observatory operates 2 Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. Gemini South is equipped with the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics System (GeMS), a wide field AO system, operating with 5 laser-guide stars and providing a uniform image quality (10% to 30% Strehl Ratio in the 1 to 2.5μm range) over an 85”x85” field-of-view. The ALTitude conjugate Adaptive optics for the InfraRed NGS/LGS Single-Conjugate Adaptive Optics system which operates in the 1 to 2.5μm range is located at Gemini North. A new AO workhorse facility is currently being developed for Gemini North, the Gemini North Adaptive Optics system (GNAO) which will feed the Gemini Infrared Multi-Object Spectrograph (GIRMOS). GNAO has a wide-field mode with improved image quality over a 2 arcminute field-of-view (FoV), and a laser tomography mode with diffraction-limited performance over a 20”x20” FoV. GIRMOS implements multi-object adaptive optics for each of its four integral field spectrographs; it also contains a near infrared imager, which can benefit from both wide and narrowfield AO capabilities. In addition, the Gemini Planetary Imager completed its science mission at Gemini South, is currently being upgraded (GPI2.0) and is planned to be installed at Gemini North in 2025. A wide-field Ground-Layer Adaptive Optics feasibility study using an Adaptive Secondary Mirror has been completed and preparations for a Conceptual Design Study are underway. This paper summarizes our operational adaptive optics (AO) facilities, the status of our ongoing AO development projects, and finally our longer-range observatory AO roadmap.
GeMS was the first laser-assisted Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) system to operate in the sky, and for over a decade it has been used with the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager (GSAOI) to deliver wide-field AO-corrected data to the observatory scientific community. An effort is underway to improve GeMS in several aspects, making it a more reliable system to operate and with the ultimate goal to turn it into a broader AO facility, capable of also feeding other instruments. Its current status of operations and development plans, as well as the ongoing work on non-common path aberrations calibrations, a necessary step for its integration with Flamingos-2 operations, are addressed here.
ALTAIR, the Gemini North single conjugated Adaptive Optics system has been Gemini AO facility instrument since 2003. Used every single night for the Gemini primary mirror tunning, ALTAIR has been allocated for GEMini NIR instruments science programs including the Near Infrared Integral-field Spectrograph (NIFS), the Near Infrared Imager (NIRI) and the Gemini multi-function spectrograph (GNIRS). In this proceeding, we propose to review the actual performances of our 20 years old AO system. We will also describe the main instrument failure (Slow focus camera, Deformable mirror) that we had to fix to keep ALTAIR alive until the GNAO instrument venue (5 years from now).
Flamingos-2 (F2), mounted on the Gemini South telescope, offers imaging, long-slit and multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) across various near-infrared bands. When paired with GeMS, the Gemini Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) system, it creates a remarkable astronomical tool in the Southern hemisphere. The feasibility study indicates that the on-sky field of view (FoV) encompasses a 2.37 arcmin diameter. Preliminary GeMS+F2 long-slit tests achieved a spatial profile full width at half maximum (FWHM) better than 0.3 arcsec (1.9 pixels) under 0.85 arcsec seeing conditions. The instrument’s long-slit covers 1.6 arcmin in the sky. MOS masks are capable of accommodating up to 48 slits in sparse fields and around 80 targets in crowded or extended fields. Anticipated background issues are minimal in the J and H bands, while comprehensive testing is essential to evaluate thermal background in the K band. Incorporating GeMS alongside F2 significantly improves spectral resolution by at least a factor of two, particularly at spectral range edges. Finally, a noteworthy outcome of the study reveals that F2 with GeMS in non-LGS mode produces a “super-seeing” mode with enhanced image quality by a factor of 2 or more.
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