Coming Soon - Three New Telescope Facilities

During the course of the next year or so, the astronomical community will gain observing opportunities on three new telescope facilities through the NOAO observing proposal process: the MMT, the HET, and Gemini North. Although it is possible that the availability dates may change a bit, either earlier or later, we provide here current information on these facilities. The information will be updated periodically in future issues of the Newsletter or check out our Web site at http://www.noao.edu/noaoprop/.

• The 6.5-m Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) on Mt. Hopkins will be available for community access time for 27 nights a year, February 2000 through January 2006. The first proposal deadline will be 30 September 1999. All observing will be classical observing. Instrumentation includes:
  • MMT Spectrograph: Red Channel - sensitive from 4000Å to 10000Å, spectral resolution from 2Å to 25Å. Echellette mode giving full coverage from 430Å to 8900Å with a near-constant 90 km/sec resolution with 1" × 20" slit. Limited multi-slit capability over a 3' field. Blue Channel - sensitive from 3100Å to 8000Å, spectral resolution from 1Å to 15Å. Echellette mode giving full coverage from 3150Å to 8000Å at 30 km/sec resolution with 1" × 10" slit;

  • Roughly 4K × 4K optical imager - planned;

  • 1024 × 1024 near-IR camera - planned.

• The 9.2-m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory will be available for community access time for 27 nights per year, August 2000 through July 2006. The first proposal deadline is planned for 31 March 2000. All observing will be queue observing. Instrumentation includes:
  • Low-resolution spectrograph (R = 600 to 3,000, 3072 × 1024 CCD, grisms for longslit and multi-object spectroscopy, filters for imaging);

  • Medium-resolution spectrograph (R = 3,500 to 21,000, dual-beam echelle, fiber longslit, and multi-object capability);

  • High-resolution spectrograph (R = 30,000 to 120,000, 4096 × 4096 CCD, mosaic of two echelle gratings).

• The first 8-m Gemini Telescope, Gemini North, is expected to be available for observing starting in June 2000. NOAO will hold a special call for proposals with a deadline of 31 January 2000, to accommodate the June 2000 through January 2001 observing period. After this initial proposal period, proposal deadlines will be the same as other NOAO facilities (31 March and 30 September). Gemini will support both classical and queue observing. The US astronomical community will receive ~42% of the time available to the partner communities. The following instruments are planned for this first call for proposals:
  • Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) - 1-5 m imager with 1024 × 1024 detector array; selectable pixel scales: 0.02", 0.05", 0.12"/pixel;

  • Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) - low/medium resolution optical spectrograph; 4608 × 6144 detector array; 0.08"/pixel scale; resolution up to 10,000 with 0.25" slit; wavelength coverage 300-1000 nm; integral field unit with 0.2" spacing; imaging mode;

  • Michelle (shared with UKIRT) - 8-30 m imager/spectrograph with 256 × 256 detector array; pixel scale 0.18"/ pixel; R = 200, 1000, 13000;

  • University of Hawaii Adaptive Optics Imager - 1-2.5 µm imager with 1024 × 1024 detector array; pixel scale 0.02"/pixel; natural guide star 36-element AO system.

Todd Boroson