Gemini, GPI, and a new friend

The GPIES Exoplanet Survey has begun!  But that’s a different post.  For now, here are some photos of these great beautiful machines. 

As we came up to the domes after dinner tonight, we had a visitor overhead, circling around and, well, soaring over the SOAR telescope right next door.  Our local expert in Andean wildlife, Gemini instrument scientist Pascale Hibon, says this is a juvenile female condor, younger than three years because she’s not yet displaying any white adult feathers. We have decided she is named Henrietta.

The sun has just set, and we’re slewing towards the first target of the night… ¡Adelante!