GPI at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation

Members of the GPI team recently attended the biennial SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation conference. This time it was in Montreal at the end of June, and you can check out #SPIEastro to find out more about the general topics covered at the conference.

Bruce professing at Jerome’s poster.

After the conference, the presenters write manuscripts on their work and these are published in the Proceedings of SPIE. Last night we had a GPI “paper splash” of SPIE pre-prints at the Astro-ph ArXiv. There are 18 of them — that’s a lot of work from the GPI team! Thanks to Quinn for posting.

1. On-sky performance during verification and commissioning of the Gemini Planet Imager’s adaptive optics system by Lisa A. Poyneer et al.
2. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations I: Overview of the GPI Data Reduction Pipeline by Marshall D. Perrin et al.
3. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations II: Detector Performance and Calibration by Patrick Ingraham et al.
4. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations III: Empirical Measurement Methods and Applications of High-Resolution Microlens PSFs by Patrick Ingraham et al.
5. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations IV: Wavelength Calibration and Flexure Correction for the Integral Field Spectrograph by Schuyler G. Wolff et al.
6. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations V: Astrometry and Distortion by Quinn M. Konopacky et al.
7. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations VI: Photometric and Spectroscopic Calibration for the Integral Field Spectrograph by Jerome Maire et al.
8. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations VII: On-Sky Polarimetric Performance of the Gemini Planet Imager by Sloane J. Wiktorowicz et al.
9. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations VIII: Characterization and Role of Satellite Spots by Jason J. Wang et al.
10. Gemini Planet Imager Observational Calibrations IX: Least-Squares Inversion Flux Extraction by Zachary H. Draper et al.
11. Gemini Planet imager Observational Calibrations X: Non-Redundant Masking on GPI by Alexandra Z. Greenbaum et al.
12. Gemini Planet Imager integration to the Gemini South telescope software environment by Fredrik T. Rantakyro et al.
13. Gemini Planet Imager One Button Approach by Jennifer Dunn et al.
14. Automated Alignment and On-Sky Performance of the Gemini Planet Imager Coronagraph by Dmitry Savransky et al.
15. The Integral Field Spectrograph for the Gemini Planet Imager by James E. Larkin et al.
16. Characterization of the Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector of the Gemini Planet Imager by Pascale Hibon et al.
17. Effects of differential wavefront sensor bias drifts on high contrast imaging by Naru Sadakuni et al.
18. GPI PSF subtraction with TLOCI: the next evolution in exoplanet/disk high-contrast imaging by Christian Marois et al.

The GPI team had dinner together at a nice Italian restaurant, organized by Quinn and thanks to the Dunlap Institute that hosts many of our GPI team members in Toronto. Here we are walking to the restaurant (left), and Lisa is giving a toast and telling a funny story about Bruce (right).

Marshall also posted the submitted version of his HR 4796 paper and you should go check out the GPI images of this famous debris disk — they’re beautiful!
Polarimetry with the Gemini Planet Imager: Methods, Performance at First Light, and the Circumstellar Ring around HR 4796A by Marshall D. Perrin et al.

The walk down by the river in Montreal was quite pretty and warm in late June.

There are many conferences in astronomy and many in engineering, but this is a rare one that combines the two, and so the SPIE Telescopes conference is always a big deal. The AO session in particular was pretty crowded and the GPI talks were well-attended. I didn’t manage to get a good seat at all the talks or to catch the presenters at all the posters, but here are some pictures that I was able to take:

Prof. Bruce Macintosh’s talk was well-attended.

Lisa Poyneer’s talk was right after Bruce’s and a great follow-on.

Marshall Perrin at his poster

Max Millar-Blanchaer and his and Sloane Wiktorowicz’s poster

Jason Wang at his poster

Jennifer Dunn at her poster.

Jerome Maire at his poster.

Dmitry Savransky at his poster.

Pascale Hibon at her poster

Patrick Ingraham at his poster

Quinn Konopacky at her poster. She also gave a great invited talk on her work characterizing exoplanet atmospheres via spectroscopy, which is perfect for GPI!

Zach Draper at his poster

Marshall Perrin and Schulyer Wolff at their posters

The conference was in downtown Montreal