Participants: M. Bremer (MB), R. Sharples (RS), R. Bower (RGB), A. Bunker (AB), T. Gledhill (TG), M. Hoare (MGH), P. Lucas (PL), J. Dunlop (JSD) over phone link from Edinburgh. From Oxford: R. Bandyopadhyay, R.L. Davies (for part of the meeting), I. Hook (IMH), D. Rigopoulou, and P. Roche. Introduction and update IMH presented an account of the instruments currently available at G-N and G-S. For 2003B it is foreseen that 55% of GN time and 60% of GS time will be available for science, the remaining being used used for commissioning new instruments and telescope engineering work. Current G-N Instruments NIRI : undergoing some upgrade work GMOS-N : OK, no significant problems Michelle : commissioning spectroscopy modes and engineering work - move to UKIRT for 2004A Altair : commissioning underway - is offered in imaging mode in 2004A Current G-S Instruments TReCs : OK -- imaging and spectroscopy modes available GMOS-S : OK -- the IFU mode will be commissioned in Nov 03 bHROS : arrived at GS, awaiting commissioning Additionally, the following instruments are scheduled to arrive at GEMINI: GNIRS, NIFS (2005A?), LSG for Altair (expected next year), GSAOI (due for 2006A), FLAMINGOS II (after 2006A). It was stressed that telescope time available for science in each semester should not drop below 70% (resolution from the Gemini Board). For 2004A it has been announced that GN and GS aim to devote 80% and 70% of telescope time to conducting science projects. Instrumentation Following a short presentation of the available instruments JSD initiated a discussion about current and/or future instruments that the UK community would like to see on GEMINI. Concerns about the number of working instruments were raised. In particular there is no IR MOS instrument planned until 2006. A second related issue is that there seem to be a very large number of instruments arriving and there is concern that Gemini cannot realistically support all these in steady-state? JD would like to see 3 instruments working reliably on each telescope. Then the discussion focused on the outcome of the Aspen meeting on 2nd generation GEMINI instruments. The members of the UK GEMINI Science Committee were asked to express preferences out of the 11 potential instruments that came out of the Aspen process (although it was noted that this discussion was somewhat premature since the documentation from Aspen was not yet available). The table below shows the preferences of the various members of the Gemini UC.   GN GS jsd: glao mos glao mos ab: opt ifu glao mos rgb: opt ifu wf-opt-mos pfr: hir nir glao mos rs: opt ifu wf-opt-mos pl: glao mos xao coron mgh: mcao nir mos hres -nir-spect tg: nrir mos xao cor   polarimetry   mb: glao mos -- imh: glao mos wf -opt-mos GEMINI UC will be asked for more input on the Aspen instrumentation priorities once the documents are made available by Gemini and before the Gemini Science Committee meeting in October. Operational issues (TG) The phase I of the proposal submission seems to be relatively user-friendly. However, solar-system astronomers have expressed their concern that PIT does not take particular care for non-sidereal observation. If GEMINI plans to implement a change in the current PIT software then this should happen in consultation with the community. Discussion followed on how to improve the current PIT by e.g. implementing a on-line help-system that will lead you through the various sections etc. Some information currently required by PIT was deemed unnecessary at the proposal stage (e.g. the need for wfs stars) except perhaps in the case of Altair and AO assisted observations. A more serious complaint from the community was however, the need to include easy-to-find, easy-to-follow guidelines on overheads for the various instruments. Currently, although the information does exist its location is not easily traced. it was suggested to link the overheads page for each instrument to the relevant ITC. TAC Process (MGH) An effort is being made to allocate proposals over all weather conditions. Also, GEMINI and the national TACs encourage submission of larger programs. Phase II and the OT (RGB) It was suggested that the statistics of yearly use of the telescopes/instruments should appear on the web together with the weather conditions and various projects execution times. This benefits both the actual observers but also the community as it enables them to get a better feel when designing their observations. Releases of the OT software should be backwards compatible to enable observers with followup programs. However, a common complaint in designing observations (aka Phase II material) seems to be the information available on the WEB. Although in principle enough information seems to be available on the WEB, it is either very hard to find or not sufficiently linked to key pages. An example of this are the very useful "instrument libraries" which unfortunately are not very obvious to the novice user. The documentation should be revised and made easier to access. Another difficulty noted by the GMOS users refers to the GMOS images (taken during the pre-imaging phase). Currently, the design of MOS observations is done using image pixels rather than the more commonly used conventional coordinates (mostly because distortions are not well known yet). Again the issue of the incomplete documentation especially for GMOS nod-and-shuffle mode came up. Finally, to minimise delays it was suggested that G-S should be equipped with a mask-cutting machine. Observing procedures / Data acquisition / Data distribution (AB) The lack of suitable accommodation in G-S seems to be a major disturbance to visitor observers on the site. Regarding the various observational procedures AB discussed a number of issues following his experience as a team member of CIRPASS -- a visiting instrument -- on G-S. As far as data distribution is concerned AB suggested using DVDs which hold more data rather than using stacks of CDs. IMH noted that data distribution will soon be done via the Gemini archive Science files and relevant calibrations should all be distributed in the same medium. Perhaps introducing an HST-like policy (i.e. data distribution through a secure ftp site) could be used for priority or quick release data. Data Reduction (PL) The GMOS reduction software (especially the packages referring to the IFU mode) appears to crash quite often. GEMINI software should be upgraded to comply with iraf version 2.12. Additionally, a lot of users have resorted to writing their own software because the GEMINI IRAF software is unreliable or too hard to use. Another instrument-specific related complaint is that the FLAMINGOS quick-look images are very poorly reduced (the detector quadrants are clearly visible). Many users would find it quite useful to have additional data available (e.g. concerning weather conditions during acquisition of their data) together with their data releases. Finally there was some discussion on the operations of GEMINI versus VLT. It was pointed out that: The learning curve for GEMINI is a lot steeper than in other observatories. GEMINI data distribution is at the moment quite slow. As a result proposals intending to follow-up on previous work (carried out with GEMINI) do not include results from previous rounds. A large fraction of the UK community sees the availability of GPOL a unique opportunity for G-N. SUGGESTIONS FORWARDED TO GEMINI Operational issues: PIT should accept information for non-sidereal observations. Solar-system astronomers should be contacted for input. Inclusion of WFS stars in Phase II is unnecessary during Phase I, except for AO assisted instruments. GEMINI should publish available *open* shutter times together with the call for proposals for each semester. Instrument overheads should be linked to instrument ITC pages and possibly a note should be included in the PIT. Phase II: GEMINI should publish completion statistics and observing conditions from previous years. OTs should be backward compatible for those observers with followup programs. The instrument libraries should be more visible. Instrument documentation pages should be revised - a common complaint is that the information is scattered into to many places not obvious to the novice user. GMOS mask design should be possible using RA, DEC coordinates, not only GMOS image pixel coordinates. G-S should be equipped with a mask-cutting machine to minimise delays. Improvements to mask-masking software are needed, especially logic of slit positioning. Documentation also needs improvement (especially mask-making for Nod & Shuffle). Data distribution: Science data and calibration files should be distributed together preferably through a random access medium or an ftp site. Current delivery times are very long. This affects follow-up projects as there is not enough time between data release and the next proposal deadlines. Weather data should accompany data releases. Others: UK Users find that the learning curve for GEMINI is steeper than for other observatories. The UK community feels that GPOL would be a tremendous advantage to G-N. The lack of suitable accommodation near G-S is major inconvenience for observers.