2007 Mar 1 - First Light

NICI arrived on Cerro Pachon in early January 2007. Commissioning in the lab began immediately, led by Tom Hayward (Gemini Instrument Scientist), Doug Toomey (Mauna Kea Infrared) and Mark Chun (Univ. of Hawaii). The instrument was installed on the telescope February 14, 2007 and saw "first light" on the sky February 20th. The AO loop was successfully closed the second night (the first suffered from very poor seeing). An intensive, and largely successful, six night commissioning run concluded on February 27th. Commissioning and performance optimization will continue through 2007A and into 2007B.

2006 Jan 4 - NICI Campaign Science Team Selected

The Gemini Director, with input from the ITAC and a panel of independent experts, has chosen an international team led by Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii to conduct a major campaign to directly image planets around nearby stars using NICI. The team includes members of the instrument team building NICI and a number of other collaborators from across the Gemini partnership. The NICI Campaign is planned to begin in 2006 and will be carried out over the next two to three years using 50 nights of observing time. With strong observational, technical, and theoretical expertise, Gemini expects that the NICI Campaign will significantly advance our understanding of the properties and frequencies of extrasolar planets using this exciting new instrument.

The NICI Campaign team includes Michael Liu, Mark Chun, Christ Ftaclas (University of Hawaii), Laird Close, Adam Burrows (University of Arizona), Doug Toomey (Mauna Kea Infrared), Neill Reid (STScI), Niranjan Thatte, Matthias Tecza, Fraser Clarke (Oxford), Harvey Richer (U. British Columbia), Jane Gregorio Hetem, Elisabete De Gouveia Dal Pino, Sylvia Alencar (U. Sao Paolo), Pawel Artymowicz (Toronto), Doug Lin (UC Santa Cruz), Shigeru Ida (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Alan Boss (DTM/Carnegie), and Mark Kuchner (NASA Goddard).

Background on the NICI Campaign

NICI will be the first Gemini instrument to be used in "campaign" mode. A single planet-search program will be awarded a significant amount of observing time (approximately 50 nights over two to three years). NICI campaign observing is planned to start in semester 2006A following instrument commissioning and system verification phases (depending on instrument delivery and early commissioning progress). For more information about the NICI campaign, please see the following links:

• Announcement and call for Letters of Interest (7 July 2005)
• Letters of Interest team members [HTML, and PDF] and team formation information (31 August 2005)
• Campaign Science Call for Proposals introduction
• Campaign RFP Documents:
  • Request for Proposals (RFP)
  • Statement of Work (SOW)
  • RFP Addendum #1 - improved legibility of performance plots; tables added (16 Sep 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #2 - clarification of policy for adding individuals to winning team after team selection (7 Oct 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #3 - supplemental information on calculating performance and sensitivity (11 Oct 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #4 - extra information of filters, coronagraphic masks and WFS performance (15 Oct 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #5 - potential funding for additional filters or masks (28 Oct 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #6 - clarification of sensitivity estimates (1 Nov 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #7 - clarification on page limits (2 Nov 2005)
  • RFP Addendum #8 - additional information on CVs, filters and image quality (3 Nov 2005)

Last update: Mar 1, 2007; Bernadette Rodgers