14 DAY TRIAL // UK astronomers just lost their sits in the best northern observatory that they had access to. Due to funding cuts, the board that administers the Gemini Observatory decided that it is best that the UK should be restricted from having direct access to the telescope. Thus in December last year, the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Research Council announced in a press release that it would withdraw from both the north and the south Gemini Observatories.
The 8-meter north Gemini Telescope is the only one of its kind in the northern hemisphere and is located in Hawaii, while its twin, the south Gemini Telescope, is placed in Chile. Both are administered by a governing board composed of representatives from the US, Canada, Chile, Australia, Brazil and Argentina. The UK was contributing with about 24 percent of the total budget of the program.
Initially, the UK astronomers protested against the STFC's decision of banning them from both Gemini telescopes, and requested that they should at least gain access to the south one. However, the STFC is confident about the decision taken last month and has stated that since 1st of February this year, UK astronomers will no longer have access to any of the two telescopes.
The situation has brought both sides in extremely difficult situations. The UK astronomers no longer have access to the largest north observatory and will only be able to gain direct access through international collaborations. The problems is, according to Paul Murding from the University of Cambridge, that such international teams are not obligated to include UK astronomers in their program, putting them in negotiating disadvantage over the other countries.
On the other hand, the Gemini program has lost an important contributer to their budget, since the UK was providing about one quarter of the fundings. This ultimately translates in less upgrades to the Gemini telescopes. Given the odd situation, STFC hopes that in the future it will be able to reverse the funding cuts in order to revive the partnership between UK and the Gemini Observatory.
STFC adds that the funding cuts to the Gemini contribution was mostly due to the need to save money for other scientific projects, such as the Extremely Large Telescope, and therefore considering that its budget will fall by the year 2011 to about 80 million pounds. At the same time the Magneto, Ionosphere and Solar-Terrestrial association highly criticizes STFC for what they think to be a lack in transparency and refusal to communicate with the scientific community.