Ongoing and future instrument upgrades at Gemini

Abstract

Gemini Observatory is committed to providing its community with the best possible competitive instrumentation suite given technological and budget constraints. The Observatory operates 4 facility instruments plus 1 AO system at each 8m telescope. It is incorporating a new facility high resolution spectrograph, building a major workhorse multi-channel instrument for transient sources follow up, and designing a new multi-conjugate AO system. We also run three major upgrades of workhorse instruments and a long-term program to support user motivated upgrades. This paper provides a summary of results of the last three years of the instrument upgrades program and an update on our strategy to keep our instrumentation suite competitive.