Title: NICI - the new Gemini South AO facility coronagraph

Author(s): M. Hartung, T. Hayward, E. Artigau, N. Zarate, G. Trancho,
R. Galves, J. Luhrs, C. Urrutia, E. Christensen, M. Chun, D. Toomey,
J. Jensen


The Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager NICI has recently been made
available to the astronomical community. It is the first adaptive
optics facility instrument of Gemini South and is optimized for
coronographic imaging.  Even though until now the largest fraction of
observing time has been dedicated to the NICI planet finding campaign,
also the first open time observations were performed.  This talk will
give an update of the status from the observatory's perspective and
explore the instrument limits from the most recent commissioning and
observing data.  We will share our experience gained, intended to be
useful to optimize NICI's application to different science topics.
Eventually, we will focus on how contrast performance is interlinked
to the data reduction pipeline (Angular Simultaneous Differential
Imaging/Local Optimazation Combination of Images), and demonstrate the
reachable gain applying these modern techniqes.