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SV/Demo Science

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System Verification at Gemini is the final step of testing prior to the use of the telescope by the Gemini community.

System Verification (SV) is a test of the total Gemini observing system. It is distinct from commissioning, which is a separate activity that precedes SV. Commissioning of a piece of equipment, e.g. a science instrument, is intended to verify that the equipment performs as anticipated, to characterize all of its available modes of operation and their performance, and to demonstrate its capability to do science at the level for which it was designed. SV is intended to demonstrate that the entire observing system is in place, that scientific observations with the commissioned instrument can be planned and performed, and that resulting data are of the quality expected and can be handled in the manners specified for use by the Gemini user community.

Visiting instruments (e.g. loaned by other observatories and universities) are put through a much more limited commissioning process culminating in Demonstration Science (DS) observations, analogous to SV.


Last update August 28 2006; Rachel Mason
In original form June 6, 1999; Tom Geballe and Fred Gillett


Gemini Observatory Participants