The Gemini North Adaptive Optics system (GNAO) is the next-generation adaptive optics facility for the Gemini-North telescope, developed as part of the National Science Foundation-funded Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA) program. GNAO will replace the current single-conjugate ALTAIR facility with a modern wide-field adaptive optics (AO) system for science in the near-infrared, supported by four laser guide stars and fully integrated into the Gemini queue observing. The design of GNAO is optimized for two main modes:
- Narrow-field mode: Near-diffraction-limited performance over an approximately 20”x20” field of view (via laser tomography AO)
- Wide-field mode: Seeing-enhanced performance over a 2-arcmin diameter field-of-view (via ground-layer AO).
Together with its primary science instrument - the Gemini Infrared Multi-object Spectrograph (GIRMOS) - GNAO will provide powerful capabilities for time-domain astronomy at high angular resolution, spatially-resolved spectroscopic surveys, and a wide range of solar system to extragalactic science cases.
For more information, please see the following:
GNAO will feed GIRMOS as primary science instrument but is also availabe as an AO facility to provide the AO-compensated beam to any f/32 compatible science instrument.