| 16 Apr 2010
Experienced amateur astronomer, Richard Miles, recently visited Faulkes Telescope South . Richard has been leading our recent observing programme to follow a cometary outburst, and provides expert advice for our Asteroids and Comets programme . He
| 13 Apr 2010
The discovery of nine new planets challenges the reigning theory of the formation of planets, according to new observations by astronomers, 2 of which for our own Dr Rachel Street and Dr Tim Lister .
| 19 Mar 2010
The CoRoT satellite, operated by the French space agency CNES, has discovered a Jupiter- sized planet orbiting a star similar to the Sun in the constellation Serpens Cauda at a distance of 1500 light-years from the Earth. The parameters of this gas
| 27 Jan 2010
We have been commissioning a new camera over the past few months, called Spectral (although it is an imaging camera not a spectrometer). One of our science interns (BJ Fulton) has been following an open cluster monitoring program and has been among
JD Armstrong | 08 Jun 2010
Students from the Hawaiian islands havebeen attending the 2010 HI-STAR program at the University of Hawai`iat Mānoa.The program pairs students with researchers at the University ofHawai`i to work on research projects. Topics include “Young HotStars”
| 04 Feb 2010
This comet appears to have undergone another massive outburst, this time on 2010 February 2 increasing in brightness by a factor of 30-40. The object is one of the largest active comets known. It follows a near-circular path about 6.2 AU from the S
JD Armstrong | 13 Jun 2010
I Got A Candy Apple. I Got A Popcorn Ball. I Got A Rock.
David Petry | 16 Jul 2010
After more than five years of redesign, engineering, and commissioning, the 18” handicap-accessible Wren-MarcarioAccessible Telescope (WMAT) will be rededicated at the McDonald Observatory Frank N. Bash Visitor’s Center this Saturday, Jul
| 22 Jan 2010
I rediscovered a tool that I had forgotten about this morning. A website called Wordle which can grab all the text from a website, rss feed or even a paragraph that you submit and graphically display the words in a semi-artistic way. Larger words rep
| 12 Jan 2010
The development of our custom made enclosures for our 0.4m telescopes is continuing. The project is called Aqawan, which is the Chumash word for 'to be dry'. Have a look at my previous blog entry about the aqawan design.
Jessica Barton | 17 Apr 2010
Tonight at the Santa Barbara County Science fair, Daniel Godinez, Caylin Canales and Rishika Singh all won gold medals for their science fair projects and will be going to the state science fair next month!
David Petry | 05 Aug 2010
Santa Barbara– August 2010
| 30 Apr 2010
We recently hosted a workshop in our Santa Barbara headquarters at the end of the KITP annual teachers' conference. During the tour around the facilities, one teacher (Steve Cooperman) took some stereograms and made anaglyphs out of them (click on
| 19 Dec 2009
Over the past year I have been working on a series of science video podcasts (or vodcasts), with Jon Yardley and Olivia Gomez. There are lots of vodcasts available in the world of science but I wanted to make some which were fun and accessibe but d
| 18 Jun 2010
The observatory site we are affectionately calling BPL (back parking lot) is our on-site testing ground for the 1m and 0.4m projects. We have an enclosure for each; an aqawan for 0.4m and an Ash dome for our 1m. The first of our 1m network was recent
| 28 May 2010
Last night, the 0.4m telescope in the back parking lot (BPL) produced the first fully 'sequenced' observation with the new control system. The sequencer is the layer of software which sits on top of all the low-level telescope, instrument, and enc
Jessica Barton | 24 May 2010
The 59th annual California State Science Fair was held on May 17-18, 2010. This year 960 participants represented 394 schools throughout the state and competed for awards totaling over $50,000. Daniel Godinez and Caylin Canales took fourth place in t
JD Armstrong | 19 May 2010
When I represented LCOGT at last year's AstroDay, I never thought that we could meet with more people in a single day. We edged out last year when over 250 people visited our booth at AstroDay this year. Visitors played Messier Bingo, and when the
LCO Webmaster | 05 Aug 2009
Well, we've been at the summit for almost 10 hours and it's been great so far. Mark was installing a webcam on the outside of a building and we helped him out whilst the electrics and links with the 0.4m and the control software are bei
| 18 Aug 2009
I have been working with a student from Mechelen Technical School (near Antwerp), Belgium on an asteroid project. The student contacted me about using the "Making Craters " activity as part of year long project for final year of secondary s
| 01 Sep 2009
This movie shows the whole night on Haleakala from an all sky camera we have installed next to Faulkes Telescope North. The camera takes images every 3 minutes and this is a 15 frame/smovie of the images taken on September 1 from 04:45 UT (just as th
| 04 Nov 2009
Faulkes Telescope North has undergone a substantial refurbishment. The primary mirror has been removed using a portable gantry, and block and tackle. This is no mean undertaking as the mirror itself weighs over a ton, at 1240 Kg (2734 lbs). The mi
| 16 Oct 2009
As part of Twitter Moonwatch we have been working with our UK education partner Faulkes Telescope Project and the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (UK national node), to bring a competition to win an hour observing on Faulkes Telescope South
| 05 Oct 2009
Every year the Las Cumbres Amateur Outreach Award is presented to an individual displaying outstanding outreach by an amateur astronomer to children and the public. This award is presented at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) annual mee
LCO Webmaster | 17 Dec 2009
This week, a number of scientists have gathered in Madrid to discuss the first science results from the Herschel Space Telescope. Herschel is the largest astronomical telescope ever put in space (the mirror is 3.5m wide!) and observes light at inf