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
Sandy Seale | 04 May 2010
Richard Miles from British Astronomical Association has been coordinating UK schools to make observations of a comet that is behaving strangely. Comet P/2010 H2 (VALES) underwent a major outburst around 2010 April 15 brightening by more than 1000 t
Sandy Seale | 11 May 2010
For those of you who have been following our news of recent comet observations and analysis by Richard Miles (BAA), he has provided us with an update on his observations of comet Vales.
Sandy Seale | 21 May 2010
There has been steady progress at our Cerro Tololo , Chile site over the past few month. Here are latest photos from Enrique (who is project managing the ground work for us in Chile). This might not look like much but it represents a significant a
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”
JD Armstrong | 13 Jun 2010
I Got A Candy Apple. I Got A Popcorn Ball. I Got A Rock.
Sandy Seale | 26 May 2010
For the past week Richard Miles (BAA) has been following an as-yet unidentified object orbiting the Sun (dubbed 2010 KQ), using Faulkes Telescope North. Recent observations suggest it is a man-made object with an exciting past.
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
David Petry | 05 Aug 2010
Santa Barbara– August 2010
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 23 Jun 2010
Last weekend I was part of the first UK Science Hack Day. Strangely it lasts a whole weekend, but the 'day' aspect refers to a 24 hour hack session. We were hosted by The Guardian newspaper in London (where many people also ended up sleeping there
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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 .
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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.
Sandy Seale | 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
JD Armstrong | 09 Oct 2009
Tonight We will attempt to image the LCROSS impact using the Faulkes Telescope North. Recently students at Kalama Intermediate on Maui created their own LCROSS event. Assisted by Dr. J. D. Armstrong, on Friday October 2nd students in the astrono
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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 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
Sandy Seale | 21 Jul 2009
The commissioning work at the Sedgwick Reserve Observatory continues. This is the latest image taken by the LCOGT team working on the telescope.