pear at Gemini South.
High-precision polarimeters now abound
at Gemini with the promise of two new
and exciting visiting instruments: POLISH-2
(aimed at exoplanet reflection polarimetry)
and HIPPI-2 (designed to capture the di-
rect polarization signatures of exoplanets).
POLISH-2 will have its first observing run
in 2018B; we look forward to hosting this
instrument for a few nights in August on
Gemini North and seeing the great science
it can do. HIPPI-2, visiting from the Univer-
sity of New South Wales, is scheduled for
commissioning soon; it may be ready to join
the party in the next few semesters. APRIL 2018
Planning Ahead First Light for GHOST’s
Cassegrain Unit
We are also very excited to be preparing
for MAROON-X — a new visiting exo-Earth
finder from the University of Chicago. This
fiber-fed, red-optical, high-precision, radial-
velocity spectrograph is expected to not
only identify and characterize nearby habit-
able exoplanets, but ultimately make a cred-
ible search for life on planets outside the
Solar System. Currently, it is scheduled to be
deployed at Gemini North next year, and we
are in the process of installing an enclosure
in the Pier Lab that will help regulate the
temperature and vibration environment for
this advanced instrument. The instrument
itself is expected to be commissioned on
Maunakea in early 2019. Look for more re-
ports on the results of testing next year, with
a full description of the exciting capabilities
that MAROON-X will bring to Gemini.
Figure 12.
Second of two
trucks delivering the
Cassegrain unit to Cerro
Pachón.
Credit: David Henderson
52
simultaneous high-angular-resolution spa-
tially resolved infrared spectroscopy of four
objects within a 2 arcminute field when used
with the Gemini Multi-conjugate adaptive
optics System.
These are only a few of the visiting instru-
ments planned for deployment on the Gem-
ini telescopes in the next several years. You
can find more information on these and oth-
ers at this link. Watch for announcements
later this year to see what will be available
for the 2019A Call for Proposals!
In January 2018, the Cassegrain unit for
the Gemini High-resolution Optical Spec-
Trograph (GHOST) arrived safely at Gemini
South (Figure 12). It is the first of three pri-
mary assemblies to arrive and will be mount-
ed on the telescope’s Instrument Support
Structure (ISS); the other two are the spectro-
graph bench (to be located in the Pier Lab),
and a 30-meter-long fiber cable connecting
the two. The Cassegrain unit contains the
positioning arm system, the object and sky
Looking even further ahead, we are work-
ing with a great team of folks from several
institutions in Canada to bring the Gemini
Infrared Multi-Object Spectrograph (GIR-
MOS) to Gemini around 2024. GIRMOS is
an ambitious project designed to provide
Gemini with high performance multi-object
adaptive optics, and the ability to carry out
GeminiFocus
January 2019 / 2018 Year in Review