canberra

Going up: the Gemini facility at Cerro Pachon, Chile, pictured last month. Credit: GEMINI

The Gemini optical telescope project has broadened its international membership by including Australia as the seventh partner, alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

The announcement, due to be made yesterday (18 February) by the education minister, David Kemp, ends several years of frustration for Australian astronomers who missed an earlier opportunity to join Gemini and were also denied the chance to join the Very Large Telescope project in Chile.

Australia will contribute A$13.5 million (US$9.2 million) over five years towards Gemini's capital costs, plus A$667,000 a year in running costs (rising to A$1.1 million in 2001 and beyond). This is one of the largest allocations of public money Australia has made to a basic research facility. Although the money is not ‘new’, having been designated as a priority in the Australian Research Council (ARC)'s budget, it shows a fresh willingness by the government to support a flagship project with popular appeal.

Gemini operates a pair of telescopes in Chile and Hawaii. Matt Mountain, director of Gemini within the US National Science Foundation, says the extra funds will allow “enhanced scientific productivity”. This will offset the small decrease in the original partners' observing time needed to accommodate Australia's share. Forthcoming technical enhancements will include infrared sensors to see guide-stars in the brighter hours of dawn, allowing extended observing time.

Australia was invited in 1994 to join the Very Large Telescope project of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, but in 1996 the then science minister, Peter McGauran, finally refused to finance Australia's entry (see Nature 381, 100; 1996 ). The UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council later backed an ARC bid to persuade the Gemini partners to expand their membership. Securing funding remained problematic but now seems to have been achieved.