Moving the Gemini planet imager to Gemini North: expectations and challenges

Fredrik T. Rantakyrö; Vanessa P. Bailey; Carlos Quiroz; Brian Chinn; Bruce A. Macintosh; Melisa Tallis; Bryan W. Miller; Thomas Hayward; Lisa Poyneer; Jeffrey Chilcote; Andrew Norton; Chris Morrison

doi:10.1117/12.2312778

6 July 2018 Moving the Gemini planet imager to Gemini North: expectations and challenges

Fredrik T. Rantakyrö, Vanessa P. Bailey, Carlos Quiroz, Brian Chinn, Bruce A. Macintosh, Melisa Tallis, Bryan W. Miller, Thomas Hayward, Lisa Poyneer, Jeffrey Chilcote, Andrew Norton, Chris Morrison

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 10702, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII; 1070240 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312778
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

Abstract

After more than 4 years of operation it’s expected that the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) will move from Gemini South (GS) to the Gemini North (GN) telescope sometime in 2019. Though both telescopes are almost identical at a hardware and software level there are subtle differences. With the accrued knowledge from operations from both a software and hardware point of view we will be addressing the following subjects: Changes in software on the telescope control level to interface with the similar system at GN, changes in the user interface for both instrument operation, proposal management, and observation preparations by a PI. Adjustments and requirements to interface at a hardware level with cooling and power requirements, and changes in the hardware configuration of network interfaces. We also show the results from vibration measurements at both telescopes and these measurements indicate that the vibrations will not be an issues when moving from GS to GN. Using more than 600h of observations and performance measurements and weather conditions at GS, and correlating with several years of weather monitoring at Mauna Kea we show what improvements in performance we can expect. We expect a significant improvement in performance due to the less turbulent atmosphere at GN, with post-processed contrast improving by a factor of 1.3–2.6.

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Fredrik T. Rantakyrö, Vanessa P. Bailey, Carlos Quiroz, Brian Chinn, Bruce A. Macintosh, Melisa Tallis, Bryan W. Miller, Thomas Hayward, Lisa Poyneer, Jeffrey Chilcote, Andrew Norton, and Chris Morrison "Moving the Gemini planet imager to Gemini North: expectations and challenges", Proc. SPIE 10702, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII, 1070240 (6 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2312778

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