TEXES was offered at Gemini North as a visitor instrument in 2006B and was offered again in 2007B. Commissioning took place in the latter part of February, 2006, with a demonstration science run following in early July of 2006 and queue observations thereafter. TEXES is used in a similar manner to the way it has been used at the Infrared Telescope Facility in the past.

TEXES is not being offered at Gemini in 2008A or 2008B.

One or more of the TEXES team must be co-Is on any proposals that are granted time (John Lacy [lacy@astro.as.utexas.edu], Matt Richter [richter@physics.ucdavis.edu], Tommy Greathouse [greathouse@lpi.usra.edu], Dan Jaffe [dtj@astro.as.utexas.edu]). They will take the observations during the blocks of time when TEXES is at Gemini North. In addition to taking the observations, they will carry out the data reduction for the various programs, delivering fully reduced spectra from their reduction pipeline program to all PIs.

Prospective PIs are encouraged to contact John Lacy or other members of the TEXES team for help with the technical details of proposals.

As a visitor instrument, the way TEXES proposals is defined is slightly different than what is done for the facility instruments. All phase I proposals must be submitted to the various Gemini TACs in the usual manner using the PIT software. For those programs that are approved by the ITAC, the details of the observations will be determined in consultation with the TEXES team. Unlike the case with facility instruments, the observations will not be defined in detail in the Observing Tool, although the OT will be used to pass target and guide star coordinates to the telescope systems. Once a source has been acquired, the observations will be taken by members of the TEXES team using their own software to define telescope offsets and to take the data.