Gemini Telescope And The Supernova Legacy Survey Essay

Gemini Telescope And The Supernova Legacy Survey - Essay Example The Gemini telescope has been used by the partner countries as a tool of astronomical research. It provides world-class observing equipment of the skies for the astronomers. Each country in the partnership is awarded observational time depending on the scientific merit and contribution towards the operation of the machine. The telescopes incorporate advanced technology in order to produce high quality of images. This includes the use of adaptive optics, laser guide stars, multi-object spectroscopy, and multi-conjugate adaptive optics. In addition, the telescope is made using a silver coating that is essential for the protection of the primary and secondary mirror. The location of the telescopes provides superb viewing conditions of the sky. The telescope system has low emissivity coatings and an effective mirror cleaning program. These enable the machine to pick clear images. Each Gemini telescope has an adaptive optics setup further adding to the quality of images that the center captures. The telescopes can perform long-slit spectroscopy, multi-object spectroscopy, integral field spectroscopy and imaging at optical wavelengths. Infrared optimization and silver coating allow clear observations at the middle of the infrared spectrum. Proximity to infrared spectrograph boosts the sensitivity for point object and sources. The instrument is also known as a Multi-Conjugate optics adaptive system. It employs five guide stars to provide clarity over a large area captured. The guide stars are artificially made by laser (Simons 123). A fundamental discovery that has been made by the Gemini Observatory telescope is a multi-planet system around a star. Images from the Gemini observatory helped the international team to discover two of the planets in the year 2007 (Howell 1191).