August 2024
April 2023
Assembly, Integration and Verification phase tooling and mirror repolishing taking place. Subcontractors completed heat/cold stress cycling of the cold bench to relieve any machined-in stresses and remove any out-of-tolerance dimensions.
November 2022
June 2022
July 2021
Oct 2020
Sep 2020
Aug 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
In 2015 based on the Gemini Instrumentation Feasibility Studies, Gemini assembled an independent Gen 4#3 Steering Committee to help guide the Observatory with the Gen 4#3 project. The committee produced a Science Assessment Report and Technical & Cost Assessment Report.
The reports summarized, compared, and contrasted aspects of the independent GIFS studies assessing the combined science-capability-cost trade space. Following STAC recommendations and Board resolutions, the Gen 4#3 Steering Committee made recommendations to the Observatory regarding drivers, requirements, and clauses relevant to the Gen 4#3 design and build contract.
Gemini considered the Gen 4#3 Steering Committee recommendation report, public community comments and feedback, financial constraints, time constraints, technical/interface constraints, Board resolutions, and STAC recommendations and released an RFP in May 2016. Evaluation and selection progressed through the fall of 2016 resulting in the awarding of a contract to the Southwest Research Institute.
SCORPIO is an 8-channel imager and spectrograph that will simultaneously observe the g, r, i, z, Y, J, H, and KS bands in a square field-of-view of 3'x3', or a circular one with a diameter of 4.24'. It will obtain long slit (3' long) spectroscopy with a resolution of R ~ 4,000, simultaneously covering the range between 0.37-2.35 microns.
The eight independent arms in SCORPIO allow the user to adjust exposure times in each bandpass for increased efficiency and the best match to observing conditions. By using state of the art detectors - frame transfer in the optical and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) in the near infrared - SCORPIO will have negligible readout times enabling high time-resolution observations.
A capable instrument for extremely broad-band observations (both in imaging and long-slit spectroscopy), SCORPIO will deliver groundbreaking scientific output over a very broad range of topics that cover fields as diverse as trans-Neptunian objects and centaurs in the Solar System, exo- planets, neutron stars, X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, supernovae, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts.
SCORPIO's multi-wavelength spectroscopy (and the possibility for simultaneous multi- band imaging) makes it the optimal machine for the efficient characterization of astronomical transients - similar to those expected to be discovered in the 2020s by LSST, which promises to play a leading role in advancing our understanding of these objects identified through their explosive variability. The availability of high time-resolution, coupled with Gemini's rapid response capability, will also allow researchers to use SCORPIO to catch transient objects in their earliest phases and monitor their rapid evolution. SCORPIO researchers will be able to use gamma-ray bursts to explore the earliest star formation events in the Universe. It will also be ideal for following up and characterizing kilonova signatures of neutron star mergers, and likely counterparts of gravitational wave sources.
Each of SCORPIO's eight arms is an imaging spectrograph, based on the use of high- efficiency dichroics to split the light. The light arriving from the telescope first goes through an atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC) that compensates for atmospheric chromatic aberrations. The light then enters the NIR cryogenic chamber, where it reaches the focal plane unit. After the focal plane, the light is divided by the first dichroic into NIR and Visible (VIS) light. The VIS light then leaves the cryogenic chamber through a second window to the VIS bench which is approximately at the same temperature as the telescope. From there, the light of both beams follow similar paths, where the light is collimated and subsequently split by additional dichroics. The collimated beam of each arm passes through either a filter or grism, depending on the observing mode, and is refocused by a camera onto the detector.