Schedule Apr 02, 2010
The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign
Michael Liu (Univ. Hawaii)

Our team is currently carrying out a 50-night campaign to directly image and characterize young (<~1 Gyr) extrasolar planets using the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager (NICI) on the Gemini-South Telescope. NICI typically achieves about 1-2 magnitudes better contrast compared to previous planet-finding efforts. The Planet-Finding Campaign will have completed its second year of observing by summer 2010, with deep imaging of ~150 stars already obtained. We describe the Campaign's goals, design, target selection, on-sky performance, and results. The NICI Planet-Finding Campaign represents the largest and most sensitive imaging survey to date for massive (~1 Mjup) planets around other stars.

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