Gemini Observatory events at the 233th Winter AAS

Gemini Observatory and its partners will have many events at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), hosted this year in Seattle, Washington during 6–10 January 2019:

Visit the Gemini Observatory Booth in the Exhibit hall!
Gemini Observatory Open House
Time-Domain Follow-up Observations with Las Cumbres Observatory
NOAO US NGO Mini-Workshop: The Resurgence of High-Resolution Spectroscopy at Gemini
The Future of Ground-Based High-Contrast Imaging
Gemini Observatory Workshop: Science with SCORPIO on Gemini
Talks and Posters featuring Gemini

Visit the Gemini Observatory Booth in the Exhibit Hall at any time!

The Gemini Booth will be situated on the NSF carpet, between the National Solar Observatory and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope booths. Come to:

Get the freshest news about the Gemini Observatory
Get personal support for a proposal, an active program and/or Gemini data reduction
Get your own deck of the Gemini Card Game!
Look at our job opportunities
And more...

Gemini Observatory Open House

Tuesday January 8, 2019: 5:30 pm-6:30 pm, Washington State Convention Center, Room 305

Gemini Observatory invites the community to learn about the latest opportunities for a broad range of science with Gemini’s twin 8.1 m telescopes in Chile and Hawai’i. Gemini’s agile queue operations, broad suite of optical/infrared facility and visiting instruments, and diverse proposal opportunities support a variety on-going programs, including time-domain astronomy, high-spatial and high-spectral resolution studies, exoplanets, and extragalactic astronomy. We discuss progress on the Observatory’s facility instruments under development: GHOST, a high-throughput, high-spectral resolution (R~50-75,000) spectrograph with continuous coverage at 0.36-0.95 microns; and SCORPIO, an 8-channel optical/IR imager and spectrograph with simultaneous coverage from 0.38-2.5 microns. In addition, we describe our visiting instruments program and opportunities for the community to engage with Gemini development efforts. In preparation for the Astro2020 decadal survey, we seek feedback on our long-range strategic plan and roadmap. We are pleased to announce a major new award from the NSF to fund two central elements of our long-range strategic plan: a state-of-the-art wide-field AO system for Gemini North, and improvements to the Observatory’s ability to respond rapidly to transient events in the time-domain era and quickly deliver science-ready data to our users. These are exciting times at Gemini. Click here for Open House Talks

Time-Domain Follow-up Observations with Las Cumbres Observatory

Monday January 7, 2019: 6:30 pm-8:00 pm, Washington State Convention Center, Room 310

Since 2017, the NSF’s Mid-Scale Innovations Program has made the resources of Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) available to the US astronomical community. The goals of LCO’s program are two-fold: to allow US astronomers to gain experience coordinating follow-up observing programs and to promote the building of infrastructure (software, communication protocols) that are needed to maximize the return from time-domain surveys. LCO, with its global network of telescopes dedicated to follow-up observations of time-variable phenomena, is an excellent vehicle for achieving these goals. Present surveys (e.g. ASAS-SN, ZTF, TESS) already provide a wealth of targets for follow-up observations. The flood of data will rise when the LSST begins surveying the sky in 2022. The impact of these surveys will be diminished if discoveries are not promptly supported with complementary observations from other facilities.This splinter meeting will present science highlights from the first two years of the NSF/LCO “Open Access” program. The meeting is an opportunity for current and potential LCO users to connect with LCO scientists. We will present an overview of the LCO network with an emphasis on recent improvements and imminent developments. Members of LCO’s key project teams will discuss how they interact with the network and describe the software tools that they have developed to manage their programs. We will report on our effort to provide the time-domain astronomy community with a standard “toolkit” for creating Target & Observation Management (TOM) software. Finally, we will describe a joint initiative between LCO, SOAR, Gemini and NOAO to build a coordinated network of facilities, called AEON, optimized for time-domain astronomy.

NOAO US National Gemini Office (US NGO) Mini-Workshop: The Resurgence of High-Resolution Spectroscopy at Gemini

Tuesday January 8, 2019: 2:00 pm-3:30 pm, Washington State Convention Center, Room 305

Speakers:

Verne Smith (NOAO): Overview of science results from the high-resolution spectrographs offered at Gemini.
Jeff Carlin (LSST): Science from the optical spectrograph GRACES (Gemini Remote Access to CFHT ESPaDOnS Spectrograph).
Hwihyun Kim (Gemini): Science with the 1.5-2.5 micron near-infrared spectrograph IGRINS (Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer), a visitor instrument that was recently scheduled at Gemini South.
Jacob Bean (University of Chicago): Overview of the high-precision radial velocity spectrograph MAROON-X, which should be available at Gemini North in 2019.
Steve Margheim (Gemini): Status and overview of the future Gemini facility optical spectrograph GHOST (Gemini High Resolution Optical SpecTrograph).

Further details can be found here.

The Future of Ground-Based High-Contrast Imaging

Wednesday January 9, 2019: 10:00 am-11:30 am, Washington State Convention Center, Room 304

Organizer(s): Quinn Konopacky

In the past decade, advances in adaptive optics instrumentation have led to a rapid increase in the number of high-contrast imaging systems on large, ground-based telescopes. These systems have generated exciting new discoveries about extrasolar gas giant planets and circumstellar disks. In the 2020s, the lessons learned from these instruments will allow for technological advances that will open up a new suite of scientific possibilities. These possibilities include not only access to new populations of exoplanets, but also to other high contrast regimes such as probing the inner regions of local AGN hosts. This splinter meeting will offer a series of presentations on potential science cases for the next generation of high-contrast imaging systems, including upgraded instruments for 8-10 meter class facilities and plans for the future 20-30 meter class telescopes. Time will be reserved for discussion of additional science opportunities with these instruments. Broad participation from the community is welcome and encouraged.

Gemini Observatory Workshop: Science with SCORPIO on Gemini

Wednesday January 9, 2019: 2:00 pm-3:30 pm, Washington State Convention Center, Room 310

SCORPIO is envisioned as a workhorse instrument for the Gemini Observatory, capable of wide-band medium-resolution spectroscopy and multi-band imaging covering a broad spectral range, combined with high time resolution. These capabilities are very well suited for efficiently characterizing a large variety of transient and static sources detected by large-scale surveys, in particular by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Spectral coverage from the optical to the near-infrared, in imaging and spectroscopy, is crucial for a wide range of science, from primitive solar system bodies, to stellar explosions, to accreting compact objects, to high-redshift sources. The high time resolution allows for studying fast changing phenomena, something that has been largely unexplored at Gemini sensitivities. In this Splinter Meeting we will give a status report of the instrument, which is currently in the Critical Design Stage; give an overview of the main science drivers of the instrument; and discuss the broad range of scientific applications of SCORPIO.

List of Talks and Posters

Monday, 7 Jan

Posters

ID	1st author	Title
140.38	Mullen, Wyatt	Speckle evolution and post-processing contrast improvements with short exposure imaging on the Gemini Planet Imager
170.01	Chavez, Joy	Past, Present, and Future Gemini/GSAOI zeropoint calibrations
170.02	Peck, Alison	Visiting Instruments at Gemini
170.06	Veach, Todd	SCORPIO Instrument Design and Operational Modes
144.26	McLain, Shawn	Stellar populations in the tidal debris of NGC 520
144.31	Hunt, Qiana	Find the Quenching Mechanism of a z ~ 0.7 Post-Starburst Galaxy
145.07	Cox, Isabella	Reduction and Analysis of GMOS Spectroscopy for Herschel Sources in CANDELS
145.31	Roediger, Joel	Seeing Red: Spectroscopy of Galactic Globular Clusters from 6500 Å to 1 µm
140.34	Nguyen, Meiji	Baade’s Window: An astrometric calibration field for high-contrast imaging of exoplanets
163.04	Shirman, Nina	Unveiling the Circumstellar Regions of Thermally Pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars with the Gemini Planet Imager
163.14	Wolf, Schuyler	Dust properties of the HIP 79977 Debris Disk

Talks

ID	Time	1st author	Title
104.01	10:00-10:10am	Macintosh, Bruce	The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey: Status and Results
105.04	10:40-10:50am	Jensen-Clem, Rebecca	The near-infrared linear polarization of directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarf companions to main sequence stars
104.07	11:00-11:10am	Gerard, Benjamin	The Future of Exoplanet Imaging: the Fast Atmospheric Self-Coherent Camera Technique
104.75	11:10-11:20am	Shugart, Alysha	Diversity and inclusion in observatory operations: Advocating for and implementing positive change
114.07	11:20-11:30am	Ammons, Stephen	Independent Masses for the Luhman 16AB Binary Brown Dwarf System from Gemini GEMS

Tuesday, 8 Jan

Posters

ID	1st author	Title
242.03	Ridgway, Susan	GeMS/GSAOI near-infrared imaging of z~0.3 BL Lacs
242.07	Sameer, Sameer	Investigations of transforming BAL quasars
242.24	Runnoe, Jessie	A Survey of Kiloparsec-scale Outflows in Nearby Unobscured Quasars
242.26	Hinkle, Jason	Ionization Mechanisms in Quasar Outflows
242.40	Choi, Hyunseop	Discovery of a remarkably powerful broad absorption line quasar outflow in SDSS J1352+4239
243.38	Matthews, Brandon	Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph Distant Quasar Survey: The First Year
245.21	Melnick, David	Developing Novel Algorithms to Recover Faint Circumstellar Shell Structures from ADI data
246.01	Seth, Anil	The Demographics of Central Massive Black Holes in Low-Mass Early-Type Galaxies
250.07	Miller, Bryan	The GeMS/GSAOI Galactic Globular Cluster Survey (G4CS)
259.08	Allen, Michaela	Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 --- The Coldest Discoveries
259.14	Ward-Duong, Kimberly	Gemini Planet Imager Spectroscopy of the Extremely Red Brown Dwarf Companion HD206893 B
258.16	Howell, Dale	The Global Supernova Project

Talks

ID	Time	1st author	Title
218.03	10:20-10:30am	Kalas, Paul	The International Beta Pic b Transit Campaign
223.01	2:00-2:10pm	Panwar, Vatsal	The GEMINI/GMOS optical transmission spectral survey of close-in gas giant exoplanets
226.01	2:00-2:10pm	Wang, Jason	Dynamical Constraints on the HR 8799 Planets with GPI
223.03	2:30-2:40pm	Pearson, Kyle	Constraints on the Na abundance of XO-2 b using ground-based mutli-object spectroscopy
238.04	2:40-2:50pm	Robberto, Massimo	An Overview of SCORPIO, the Gemini-South Facility Instrument for LSST Follow-Up

Gemini Observatory Open House

Talk Title	Speaker
Gemini Observatory Overview & Strategic Vision	Jennifer Lotz, Gemini Observatory
Gemini Planet Imager Science and Future	Quinn Konopacky, UC San Diego
Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA)	John Blakeslee, Gemini Observatory

Wednesday, 9 Jan

Posters

ID	1st author	Title
355.14	Wilde, Matthew	CGM2: COS+Gemini Mapping of the Circumgalatcic Medium
356.09	Steele, Rochelle	Surveying for void galaxies with new photometric methods

Talks

ID	Time	1st author	Title
317.02D	10:10-10:30am	Ren, Bin	Detection and Characterization of Circumstellar Disks in Scattered Light with Space- and Ground-based Telescopes
306.04	10:50-11:00am	Crenshaw, D. Michael	Determining the Kinematics of Ionized and Molecular Gas in Nearby Active Galaxies with the Gemini Near Infrared Field Spectrometer (NIFS)
330.02D	2:10-2:30pm	Roberts, Caroline	The Supermassive Black Hole Mass of NGC 4151 from Stellar Dynamical Modeling
333.02D	2:10-2:30pm	Kumari, Nimisha	Spatially-resolved studies of nearby star-forming galaxies
335.02	2:20-2:30pm	Rho, Jeonghee	NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF SN 2017EAW: CARBON MONOXIDE AND DUST FORMATION IN A TYPE II-P SUPERNOVA
330.03D	2:30-2:50pm	Gnilka, Crystal	Feeding vs Feedback in the Narrow Line Region: the Morphology and Kinematics of Mrk 3
340.05	3:00-3:10pm	Esposito, Thomas	28 Debris Disks Resolved on Solar System Scales with the Gemini Planet Imager

Thursday, 10 Jan

Posters

ID	1st author	Title
455.03	Andersen, Morten	The Gemini Fast Turnaround program
452.01	Smith, Adam	Gemini Observatory Cloud Cameras: Usage in Remote Operations and Public Outreach
418.02	Heinze, Aren	Large Surveys Find Extreme Objects: A Case Study from the ATLAS Variable Star Catalog

Talks

ID	Time	1st author	Title
418.09	11:20-11:30am	Van Der Horst, Alexander	Science with SCORPIO on Gemini in the 2020s
436.03	2:20-2:30pm	Mazoyer, Johan	The surprising scattering phase function of the HR 4796 debris disk
436.05	2:50-3:00pm	Salyk, Colette	A high resolution mid-infrared survey of water emission from protoplanetary disks
423.08	3:10-3:20pm	Howell, Steve	Resolving the TESS Planet Population with High Resolution Imaging

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Your contribution presents Gemini related work and it is not listed here? Please send details to sus_inquiries@gemini.edu.