GeMS, the Gemini Laser Guide Star Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics facility system, has seen first light in December 2011, and has already produced images with H band Strehl ratio in excess of 35% over fields of view of 85x85 arcsec, fulfilling the MCAO promise. In this paper, we report on these early results, analyze trends in performance, and concentrate on key or novel aspects of the system, like centroid gain estimation, on-sky noncommon path aberration estimation. We also present the first astrometric analysis, showing very encouraging results.

Abstract. In this paper, we present the results of our study of the so-called fratricide effect, i.e. the increased background observed in a number of a wavefront sensor's sub-apertures, due to the scattering of laser photons on dust or clouds particles or air molecules located along a laser beam. Using the formalism developed by the LIDAR community, we computed the background levels to be expected on various kinds of adaptive optics systems to be installed eventually on the E-ELT (42 m). In the case of pure Rayleigh backscattering, the induced background, expected to be constant (as it mainly depends on the air molecules density), is not a show stopper. We however stress that in the presence of sub-visible clouds or dust particles along the laser beam, the significant amount of induced background, which is likely to be variable, could potentially affect the performance of AO systems.