The following capabilities and announcements are notable for the 2021A semester. Please see the relevant instrument pages and subsections of the call for proposals for details.

General:

• Gemini is planning the 2021A semester call for proposal as usual. However significant changes can happen and impact the available observing time and instruments, due to the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Altair (facility Adaptive Optics system) is currently not working and is under repair. ALTAIR is not available for the 2021A semester.
• GNIRS (1-5 micron spectrometer) is expected to be off the telescope for about a month in April/May for IFU installation.
• For users of GeMS/GSAOI, much fainter guide stars can now be selected due to the new natural guide star unit, thus increasing the sky coverage. More details on the magnitude limits can be found on the GSAOI web page.
• CFHT has requested 7 nights of exchange time for the 2021A semester, so 9 hours available on both Gemini North and Gemini South for the French community, and 15 hours available on both Gemini North and Gemini South for Canada and 10 hours on Gemini North for UH included in the time avaialble for queue).
• Proposers from the Subaru Community, who are applying for Gemini Time, should also submit their proposals via the Subaru webform by September 8, 2020 12:00 (Noon), Japan Standard Time.
• The Gemini community is eligible to propose Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) "filler" programs on Subaru in 2021A. See Other Proposal Opportunities for details.
• Gemini is producing gender statistics to measure and monitor gender equality across the submitted and successful proposals. We kindly ask you to fill the gender field in the investigator details section of the Phase I Tool (PIT) .
• Remember that Gemini PIT automatically adds the time for baseline calibrations to the total time requested for each target in the proposal. Please check carefully the information provided in the Phase I Submission Guidelines section below.
• Because of the global pandemic, we are not accepting visitors until further notice, and the "Bring One, Get One" Student Observer Support Program" program remains unavailable.

Visiting Instruments:

• 'Alopeke and Zorro, the fast low-noise dual-channel and dual-plate-scale imagers with speckle and wide-field modes, will be available for science (subject to demand) as resident visiting instruments at Gemini North and Gemini South, respectively, in 2021A.
• IGRINS, a high-resolution (R~45000), single-setting, near IR (1.45 - 2.5 microns) echelle spectrometer, will be available for science (subject to demand) as visiting instrument at Gemini South in 2021A.
• MAROON-X, a high-resolution (R~80,000), optical (500 - 900nm) spectrometer, will be available for science (subject to demand) as a visiting instrument at Gemini North in 2021A.
• POLISH-2, a high-precision polarimeter will be available for science (subject to demand) as visiting instrument at Gemini North in 2021A.

Targets are generally limited to 4 < RA hours < 1 and -37 < DEC degrees < +90. There are additional constraints as described in the target accessibility and instrument restrictions page.

Facility instruments offered in 2021A, in queue or classical mode, are:

• GMOS North (0.36-1.03 micron imager and spectrometer): available throughout the semester. The R600 grating is available to classical programs only. New OVI/OVIC filters are also available.

• GNIRS (1-5 micron spectrometer): may not be available for one month (mid-April to mid-May) in 2021A semester due to IFU installation. The short red camera is NOT available in 2021A. YJHK imaging is available via the acquisition keyhole.

• NIFS (0.95-2.40 micron integral field unit spectrometer): available without AO capability throughout the semester.

• NIRI (1-5 micron imager): may not be available 3-3.5 weeks in January/February due to Coldheads refurbishment. As in past semesters, NIRI is NOT available for spectroscopy.

Visiting instruments offered in 2021A (subject to demand) are:

• 'Alopeke: a dual-channel fast-readout visual-wavelength camera giving simultaneous diffraction-limited images in two filters over a 2.8 arcsec field of view; as well as a wide-field mode which provides simultaneous two-color imaging in standard SDSS filters over a 60" field of view. The scheduling and length of the Alopeke visiting block(s) will be subject to community demand.

• GRACES: a high-resolution, R~67,500, optical (0.4-1 micron) spectrometer. Scheduled blocks to be determined with CFHT (where the instrument resides), based on demand.

• POLISH-2: the high-precision visiting polarimeter, will be available for science at Gemini North in 2021A. The instrument is open to the community via collaborative proposals with the PI. If you are interested in obtaining data in the 2021A semester with this instrument, you must contact the PI (Sloane Wiktorowicz - sloane.j.wiktorowicz at aero.org). For more details of the instrument itself, consult the following publications: Wiktorowicz & Matthews 2008, PASP, 120, 1282, Wiktorowicz & Lofi 2015, ApJL, 800, L1. In 2016B, it was found that for stars brighter than B = 6 mag, precision of around 10 parts per million requires about 10 minutes of observing time. However, due to the large intrinsic telescope polarization of 0.4%, accuracy at  the 10 part per million level has not been demonstrated at the time of this call for proposals.

• MAROON-X: a high-resolution (R~80,000), optical (500 - 900nm) radial velocity (RV) spectrometer will be available for science at Gemini North in 2021A. The instrument is open to the community for general purpose high resolution spectroscopy. Instrument throughput is 11-12% (max, comparable to GRACES) under excellent seeing conditions but currently measured to be worse than expected for median seeing (7.5% max). For details, consult the 'Throughput and Sensitivity' section of the MAROON-X page. The instrument has demonstrated sub m/s on-sky precision for RV measurements of M dwarfs, although the instrument performance is continually being assessed and improved.

• Visiting instruments are NOT available in Classical mode.

Targets are generally limited to 5 < RA hours < 2 and -90° < dec < +28°. There are additional constraints as described in the target accessibility and instrument restrictions page.

Facility instruments offered in 2021A, in queue or classical mode, are:

• GMOS South (0.36-1.03 micron imager and spectrometer):available throughout the semester. The R600 grating is available to classical programs only. The GMOS-S detector array is currently suffering from poor charge transfer efficiency on its CCD#1 . This may affect nod-and-shuffle observations and IFU observations. We are working towards resolving this problem, and updates will be posted on the GMOS South web page .

• FLAMINGOS-2 (0.9-2.4 micron wide-field imager and spectrometer): offered in imaging and long-slit modes throughout the semester. Investigators should refer to the instrument status page for the most up to date information on delivered image quality, spectral resolution and the new filters installation and characterization. F2-MOS commissioning is not yet completed, but we expect it can be offered as part of the Fast Turnaround (FT) Program during the semester.

• GSAOI (0.9-2.4 micron adaptive optics imager) with the GeMS Adaptive Optics system: Due to guide star limitations, investigators must check the availability of Guide Star constellations using the Observing Tool before submitting a proposal. The new natural guide star unit is installed and the limiting magnitudes can be found here. Observations in IQ85 are possible for programs that can use delivered images with full-width half-maximum of ~0.2 arcseconds as opposed to the ≤ 0.1 arcseconds delivered in IQ70 or IQ20 conditions. Proposals requesting IQ85 constraints are encouraged. Observations under non-photometric conditions with 0.1 mag uniform extinction are also possible under very good IQ conditions. It is expected that at least two GSAOI/GeMS blocks of ~7 nights will be scheduled the second part of the 2021A semester. The scheduling and final number of blocks will take into account the demand from the community.

Visiting instruments offered in 2021A (subject to demand) are:

• Zorro: a dual-channel fast-readout visual-wavelength camera giving simultaneous diffraction-limited images in two filters over a 2.8 arcsec field of view; as well as a wide-field mode which provides simultaneous two-color imaging in standard SDSS filters over a 60" field of view. The scheduling and length of the Zorro visiting block(s) will be subject to community demand.

• IGRINS, a high-resolution (R~45000), single-setting, near IR (1.45 - 2.5 microns) echelle spectrometer. The scheduling and length of the IGRINS visiting block(s) will be subject to community demand.

• Visiting instruments are NOT available in Classical mode.

The exchange of time between the Gemini and Subaru communities will continue in 2021A. Gemini and Subaru expect to be able to exchange a minimum of 5 nights in semester 2021A. PIs from the Gemini community are encouraged to propose for observations on Subaru.

Relevant information:

• PIs in the Gemini community who intend to use the Subaru telescope are asked to apply through the time-exchange program and not through the open use Subaru Call. Regular proposals should be submitted via the normal Gemini Phase I process.

• Gemini community PIs can propose for Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) queue observations (preferred mode of observation). Requested telescope time for HSC queue observation (except for filler program) should be "multiple" of 1 hour which is equivalent to 0.1 night according to the observatory's policy of 10 hours per night; and should include overheads which can be calculated using HSC overhead and required time calculator. It is also possible to request HSC "classical" time. In the case of "classical", it should be noted that it takes ~30 minutes for changing filters. Subaru can accept small size programs (e.g. 2 - 3 hours) for those proposals requesting time with HSC in queue mode only. For any other instrument, Subaru time must to be requested in integer nights, however for Gemini participants with a small time share, half night allocations may be possible if a suitable program can be found for the other half night. The runs on Subaru will be evenly distributed across dark, grey and bright nights and there will be at least 3 HSC observing runs in February, March and June 2021. 

• Telescope/instruments downtime: (1) At most 34 nights downtime in total. (1) The availability of HSC will be limited by maintenance work of top unit exchanger (TUE). Please refer to HSC webpage for further information.

• Please note that LGS-AO is not available in 2021A because of laser upgrade work.

• See the Subaru Call for Proposals for full relevant information.

Facility instruments offered in 2021A:

• AO188 (Subaru 188-elements Adaptive Optics system) is available but no LGS-AO.

• FOCAS (optical camera and spectrograph) is available. The IFU mode is available.

• HDS (optical high dispersion spectrometer) is available.

• Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC - very wide field optical to far-red imager) is available. Queue is the primary mode of observations with HSC . Classical mode can be also requested. Check the HSC web page for relevant information regarding the use of narrow-band filters.

• IRCS (infrared camera and spectrometer, with Natural and Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics capability) is available. All polarimetry mode of IRCS is open as shared-risk mode.

• MOIRCS (near-infrared imager and multi-object spectrometer) will be hibernated from 2021A for two years during the SWIMS operation (see note below for SWIMS ).

Visiting instruments offered in 2021A (limited to one or two runs):

• CHARIS: Coronagraphic High Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph - provides high contrast images of exoplanets, disks, brown dwarfs with SCExAO.

• SCExAO: Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics - delivers high contrast images of the innermost surrounding of bright sources to CHARIS. The VAMPIRES module in SCExAO is also available for science observations in 2021A.

• IRD - Infrared Doppler: infrared high-dispersion, high resolution (up to 70,000) fiber-fed spectrometer. IRD provides high spectral resolution echelle spectroscopy and radial velocity measurements from 0.97 to 1.75 um simultaneously combined with AO188. IRD is available only in shared-risk. IRD SSP is started in 2019A – any IRD proposal must clarify how its scientific aim is different from SSP. A new observing mode, REACH (SCExAO+IRD), is available.

• SWIMS: Simultaneous-color Wide-field Infrared Multi-object Spectrograph - an imager and multi-object spectrograph in the NIR wavelength. SWIMS is planned to be offered in a shared-risk mode from S21A to S22B as a substitute for MOIRCS, though the final decision will be made in October 2020. If SWIMS is unavailable in S21A, Subaru will consider operating MOIRCS instead (depending on the demands for MOIRCS as a backup instrument). SWIMS applicants can request MOIRCS as a backup instrument by clearly specifying the backup plan using MOIRCS in the proposal (15. observing method and technical details section). Note that the scientific goal and observing method of the backup plan must be same as those of the main proposal. Also note that the 'MOIRCS-only' proposal is not accepted.

• Observing proposals using the visiting instruments must include the relevant instrument PIs as a Co-investigators.