Sandy Seale | 26 Oct 2017
Telescope network based in California donates 1,000 hours of observation time to new education partners across the globeLas Cumbres Observatory (LCO) is pleased to announce the launch of a new education program that will start on December 1, 2017
Tim Lister | 12 Oct 2017
(Animation depicting the flyby of small asteroid 2012 TC4 as it passes under Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Sandy Seale | 16 Oct 2017
Las Cumbres Observatory astronomers were part of an international group of scientists who discovered and made some of the first observations of a kilonova, a new type of explosion in space. This marks the first time in history that an astronomical ph
Nikolaus Volgenau | 01 Sep 2017
Las Cumbres Observatory is soliciting proposals for science observations for the 2018A semester, which will begin on 1 December 2017 and run through 31 May 2018. This call is for astronomers from institutions without guarantees of Network time: the U
Sarah Eve Roberts | 01 Sep 2017
The Las Cumbres Observatory education team tripled in size this summer, as four interns joined us to work on an exciting new project for elementary school students called 'Project Serol'.
Sandy Seale | 14 Aug 2017
Astronomers using Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) have observed an exploding star slamming into a nearby companion star and detected the fleeting blue glow from the interaction at an unprecedented level of detail. The observations reveal the surprising
Edward Gomez | 11 Aug 2017
For the past 2 months we have been running an experiment on The Zooniverse's project builder platform, called Agent NEO. We had 2 aims: 1) to improve our code for finding NEO candidates and 2) to shorten the time from observation of the candidate to
Nikolaus Volgenau | 28 Feb 2017
As I write this, a crew of LCO engineers, IT specialists, and scientists is traveling to Cerro Tololo. Their mission is to install the first element of the NRES (Network of Robotic Echelle Spectrographs), as well as to do some site maintenance work.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 22 Mar 2017
The first unit of the Network of Robotic Echelle Spectrographs (NRES) was successfully installed at our Chilean site at the beginning of the month. NRES is not yet ready for routine science observations (updates will be posted on the LCO website), bu
Nikolaus Volgenau | 18 Apr 2017
It's already the third week of the 2017AB semester. In a break with routine, this semester will be 8 months long, ending on November 30. As in past semesters, if you'd like assistance with preparing your observing requests, please email our 
Nikolaus Volgenau | 28 Apr 2017
We have debugged the "Sky" slit positioning mode on FLOYDS. "Sky" mode allows you to fix the position angle of the slit. (The more commonly-used mode sets the slit at the parallactic angle.) The change will take effect with FLOYDS observations beginn
Nikolaus Volgenau | 12 May 2017
We have had to discontinue observations with the telescope in Dome C at our Chilean site (LSC). The Sinistro camera in that dome (fl04) appeared to have a steep drop in temperature on 2017-05-07. The drop was actually a symptom of a problem with a ci
Nikolaus Volgenau | 19 May 2017
We recently discovered an error in our BANZAI data pipeline. In the source catalogs (i.e. the .CAT extensions) that accompany the reduced images, the set of FLUXAPER* keywords are used to indicate the source fluxes within circular apertures of * arcs
Nikolaus Volgenau | 25 May 2017
In June, LCO will unveil a new observing portal, the interface through which you interact with the Network. This new portal has been developed (under the codename "Valhalla") over many months. We expect that the re-designed portal will be easier for
Nikolaus Volgenau | 05 Jun 2017
LCO's new observing portal is now available! Thanks for your patience while we brought the portal online. We think that you'll like it.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 22 Jun 2017
Three of LCO's 0.4m telescopes, which hitherto had made observations exclusively of satellites and space debris, are now making science observations. So, if you are an investigator on a project that was granted 0.4m-time, the scheduler may assign you
Nikolaus Volgenau | 26 Jul 2017
NRES is LCO's set of high-resolution echelle spectrographs. The first NRES unit was installed at our Chilean site in March, and it has been undergoing development and testing ever since. Earlier this week, members of the NRES project team met to
Edward Gomez | 19 Jul 2017
The deadline has now passed and we are not accepting any more applications for this round.
Edward Gomez | 13 Apr 2017
Using robotic telescopes for astronomy education is something that is at the heart of my professional interests and I have been actively working on this during my nine years at LCO. This week, my collaborator Dr Michael Fitzgerald and I published a r
Edward Gomez | 31 Mar 2017
People living in the UK and some Northern European countries have been treated to 3 live TV shows about astronomy this week, presented by BBC Stargazing Australia. All of the shows were broadcast live from Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wale
Edward Gomez | 22 Mar 2017
Applications for this internship are now closed
Sandy Seale | 15 Feb 2017
Nikolaus Volgenau | 01 Feb 2017
Following the recommendations of an independent Time Allocation Committee (TAC), five new Key Projects have been awarded time on the LCO Network. The list of all key projects that will run during the 2017AB semester has been posted on the websit
Edward Gomez | 07 Feb 2017
Last week (Friday 3 February) the LCO education team hosted a teacher training event in Cardiff University, jointly with School of Physics & Astronomy, Universe in the Classroom, and Space Awareness. It was the not only the largest teacher traini