Category Archives: News and Announcements

By Nadine Manset (Director of Science Operations, on behalf of the CFHT ‘ohana)

Recently

At its December 2024 meeting, the CFHT Board of Directors made an important recommendation regarding the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer. See Pat Hall’s update in this newsletter.

In the science news, University of Hawaiʻi astronomers played a pivotal role in tracking an asteroid once feared to pose a risk to Earth. The asteroid, 2024 YR4, was discovered in late December and observed with MegaCam on the first night of the February run. Before the CFHT observations, the asteroid had a 3% probability of colliding with Earth in December 2032. Thanks to the MegaCam data and observations from other facilities, the likelihood dropped to just 0.28% and is now 0.001%. https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2025/02/20/hawaii-astronomers-asteroid-impact-probability-decreases/

MegaCam and its wide field of view also enabled another major discovery within our solar system, this time thanks to the work of Canadian astronomers. In March, a team from the University of British Columbia that includes Brett Gladman announced that Saturn now has 128 additional moons. Repeated monitoring of the sky around Saturn between 2019 and 2021 revealed the existence of the newly discovered irregular satellites. https://phas.ubc.ca/2025-discovery-more-saturnian-moons

Soon

The 14^th CFHT Users’ Meeting will be held May 26 – 28 at Lac-à-L’Eau-Claire, in Québec. Although the abstract submission deadline has passed, registration is still open until April 1^st. We are getting close to capacity for in-person attendance, so register quickly to save your seat if you’d like to join us in person! Remote participation is also possible. The Scientific Organization Committee is currently working on the program, which will include 2 or 3 sessions to prepare the Community Survey. The first session will present, on Monday, the scope, context, and process for the CS. Sessions on the following days will enable discussions among participants. https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/UM2025/2ndannouncement.php

By Eric Steinbring (Canadian Gemini Office, National Research Council Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics)

Calls for Proposals

Another springtime (in the northern hemisphere) brings three opportunities for Canadians to propose for time:

• First is the monthly CfP for Fast Turnaround (FT) time, at noon Hawai’i Standard Time (HST) on 31 March. The FT Call is at https://www.gemini.edu/observing/phase-i/ft/ft-cfp. Those are short, small proposals;
• On the same day (31 March) at 11:59 PM HST is the deadline for full proposals to the Large and Long Program (LLP) and Subaru Intensive Program (SIP) 2025 Call: https://www.gemini.edu/observing/phase-i-proposing-time/llp/2025-llp-call-proposals. These are big, need significant time, or are spread over many semesters – or both;
• And then, finally, is the 2025B Regular Semester CfP, at 4 PM (PDT) / 7 PM (EDT) on 2 April. Look here for the Canada-specific information about that Call: https://nrc.canada.ca/en/research-development/products-services/technical-advisory-services/gemini-canadian-specific-information-phase-i

Although not so much for Gemini-South, there has been a somewhat concerning trend towards fewer Canadian requests for Band 1+2 time (statistically, getting the best 60% of conditions) in the North, which may be for several reasons, such as competing instruments and opportunities. For reference, Figure 1 is a plot of the oversubscription for available Canadian time on both North (blue) and South (red) in the last few years. Recall also that it is smart to imagine whether relaxed, Band 3 conditions (so the usable 80% of time) can help achieve your science – even if it means asking for more time to get the job done. There is a special section of the proposal to describe exactly this strategy for consideration by the TAC. If instead, Band-4 conditions (essentially just needing the dome to be open!) would work, you can always try a Poor Weather proposal.

Figure 1. Oversubscription for Regular-Semester Canadian Band 1+2 time on both North (blue) and South (red) in the last few years.

Relatedly, there was a nice uptick recently in Canadian requests for the FT program, including for instruments in the North. Note that FT is a separate (quick) proposal system that does not go through CanTAC, and involves 10% of Canadian Gemimi time. FT can be a very good fit when a proposal needs a fairly modest amount of time and would benefit from not waiting until the bigger full-semester Call. Remember that there is always Director’s Discretionary time available (currently up to 5% per telescope) for those things that cannot wait, and are scientifically important enough not to. And finally, it is worth mentioning a couple of new instrument modes on Subaru requestable via exchange time are AO3k (the new adaptive optics deformable mirror) and the availability of PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph). Good luck with all of your proposals.

Strategic Planning Survey

Farther off on the horizon is to imagine what Gemini should look like in the 2030s. Gemini is now formulating a new Strategic Vision plan, guided by the needs of the user community, together with all the partners and community stake-holders. What are your scientific priorities for Gemini, and how should Observatory operations change (if at all) to better work towards those? What new capabilities do you think should be built to achieve those? Your thoughts on this long-range plan for the next decade are sought. Go to https://www.gemini.edu/about/gemini-strategic-planning for more, and fill in the survey at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEkv2fiXwPZYXD05zBIo3eMhVF8jPwgHDWWYRdouKxSakxIg/viewform. It is open until 12 June 2025. Make sure your voice is heard!

By/par Mike Fich (Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics) and the Canadian CCAT team

The CCAT team is pleased to announce that another major milestone has been reached in this project: the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) has arrived in Chile and assembly on the CCAT Observatory site will begin within the next few weeks.  Telescope commissioning will follow in August 2025.  First light instruments (a broad-band camera and a heterodyne spectrometer) will be installed in February 2026.

The Sloman Discoverer carrying the CCAT telescope through the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal

FYST is a 6-meter diameter submillimeter survey telescope and will be located at the best submillimetre site that has been identified anywhere in the world.  The CCAT partnership is led by Cornell University with German, Canadian, and Chilean partners. The Canadian participation is channelled through the Canadian Atacama Telescope Consortium (CATC) and includes researchers at ten Canadian universities.  The central camera module for FYST – a 350-micron 50,000-pixel device – is under development by a multi-institutional team led by Scott Chapman at UBC and scheduled for installation in 2027.  This camera will be the crowning jewel of FYST Planning is now underway for the Canadian provision of a second-generation camera to follow in a few years.  Much more detail on the project is available at the website www.ccatobservatory.org.

The CCAT team has been actively planning the science activities for FYST for several years and the plans are now in a quite mature state.  All of the observing time with FYST will be used in large surveys that are now well-defined.  Eight Key Projects have been identified.  Four of these Key Projects have Canadian leadership.  The sixth (annual) CCAT Consortium Meeting (CCM6) will be held in the Fall at Cornell (CCM5 was held at the University of Toronto).

The CCAT team is very much open to new members. We are especially encouraging new science ideas that we can explore with the amazing survey datasets we will create with FYST. If you have an interest in participating in the technology development or in any of the Key Projects please contact the author of this note, or Norm Murray (a CCAT Director), or a Key Project leader (listed on the website above).