cluded how to engage more with students
in Hilo, and how to help staff new to the is-
lands find everything they need to settle in
and enjoy the beautiful and unique commu-
nity on the Big Island.
ITAC Outcomes for 2018B
After weeks of iterations between the Na-
tional Time Allocation Committee (NTAC)
Chairs and Gemini International Time Al-
location Committee (ITAC) staff — Rodrigo
Carrasco (Chair), Marie Lemoine-Busserolle
(incoming Chair), Lindsay Magill (Technical
Secretary) and Jen Miller (incoming Techni-
cal Secretary) — the ITAC met on June 4th to
generate a workable semester queue.
It seems there is always something which
complicates to the process of taking the
results from all the participant’s TACs and
assembling a semester queue that is plau-
sibly executable (weather permitting). This
time the complication was provided by the
Gemini North laser (which is not yet ready
and could not be scheduled) and by a lack of
Band-3 programs; the latter problem proved
surmountable, and the iterations in the
meeting were reasonably quick.
The National TACs forwarded a total of sev-
en programs aimed at following up LIGO/
VIRGO gravity wave events. At present, it
appears that LIGO will be back in operation
in January 2019, which could make that an
interesting month if the expected sensitivity
improvement is realized. All of the follow-up
programs were considered and top-ranked
by their respective national TACS. If a gravity
wave event indeed happens in January, we
will doubtless need to break out the “Com-
petitive ToO” policy announced last year
and work with PIs to attempt to maximize
science outcomes. In the event that agree-
ments cannot be reached we will fall back
to the set of clearly-defined criteria on the
policy.
It was a good round for visiting instruments.
More than a hundred hours of GRACES pro-
grams were approved; the speckle camera
DSSI and its new variant `Alopeke have been
scheduled for ~115 and ~80 hours in South
and North, respectively; and POLISH-2 will
be returning to Gemini North for for an ap-
proximately six night run.
With respect to the division of time between
instruments, the two sites look quite differ-
ent: the South is dominated by GMOS-S,
with FLAMINGOS-2 a distant second (Figure
10). In the North, GMOS-N and GNIRS take
approximately the same amount of time;
the other facility and visiting instruments
will take the remaining time in more or less
equal shares.
Figure 10.
The breakdown of
time requests for
Gemini North (left)
and South (right).
GMOS-S continues
to dominate
in the South,
while the North
sees significant
allocations
to visiting
ins truments and
GRACES.
July 2018
GeminiFocus
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