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
Nikolaus Volgenau | 18 Jan 2017
Las Cumbres Observatory is soliciting proposals for science observations for the 2017AB semester, which will begin on 1 April 2017 and run through 30 November 2017. This call is for astronomers from institutions without guarantees of Network time: th
Nikolaus Volgenau | 21 Dec 2016
The Network suffered a one-two punch of power outages in the past week. On December 17, power was lost on Haleakala. As a result, science observations from that site (OGG) weren't possible on December 17-18. ----- A few days earlier, on December 13,
Nikolaus Volgenau | 26 Apr 2016
The Spectral cameras on both of our 2-meter telescopes, in Australia and Hawaii, are currently out-of-service.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 15 Jun 2016
In recent status reports, I mentioned that we've swapped SBIG cameras on telescopes in Australia (Dome B) and Chile (Dome A). The swaps were only one step in our efforts to eliminate occurrences of "shutter failure" in these cameras. We bel
Nikolaus Volgenau | 26 Jul 2016
The Sinistro camera on the telescope in Dome C at our Sutherland (South Africa) site is now available for science observations. It acquired its first post-commissioning science observations tonight ... before, alas, the dome closed-up because of bad
Nikolaus Volgenau | 01 Sep 2016
On August 29, a Sinistro camera, fl12, was installed on the 1-meter telescope in Dome A at Siding Spring (COJ). Although the commissioning observations made since then have been limited (by poor weather), the performance of the fl12 Sinistro exceeds
Nikolaus Volgenau | 01 Oct 2016
The 2016B semester began at 0 UT today. To those of you who will use the Network for the first time this semester, we say, "Welcome". As in past semesters, if you'd like assistance with preparing your observing requests, please email our Science
Nikolaus Volgenau | 04 Oct 2016
The Sinistro camera on the telescope in Dome B at Siding Spring Observatory is now available for science observations. The images will be processed through the BANZAI pipeline as soon as we have acquired sufficient flat fields. On October 6, from
Nikolaus Volgenau | 17 Oct 2016
Last week, we announced that Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network is now simply Las Cumbres Observatory, and the url of our website has changed to https://lco.global/. If you've been using scripts that call our various APIs with the
Nikolaus Volgenau | 20 Oct 2016
There have been many recent advances on LCO's Sinistro camera front. I'm pleased to announce that we have reached a long-awaited milestone: all of our 1-meter telescopes are now equipped with Sinistro cameras.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 24 Oct 2016
The shutter on the Spectral camera on FTN (Haleakala) was replaced last week, and test observations indicate that the shutter is behaving itself. The camera has been cleared to resume science observations.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 27 Oct 2016
One week ago, all of LCO's 1-meter telescopes are equipped with Sinistro cameras. Today, all of the Sinistros are available for science observations, and the raw images are getting processed through the BANZAI reduction pipeline.
Nikolaus Volgenau | 18 Nov 2016
In the past few weeks, we've experienced intermittent problems with internet connectivity to some of our network sites, which has prevented us from promptly delivering images to our science archive. In all of these cases, the connectivity problems we
Nikolaus Volgenau | 07 Dec 2016
A new SBIG camera (kb98) was installed on the 0m4a (40cm) telescope at our Australia site on November 24. The camera was enabled for science observations on December 1. Also at the Australia site, the 2-meter telescope was taken offline on Decembe
Edward Gomez | 09 Dec 2016
As well as being the LCO education team, Sarah Eve Roberts and I are also the team behind Space Scoop, an astronomy news service for kids. Although the primary audience for Space Scoop is kids from the age of 8, we know that many older kids and adult
Sandy Seale | 12 Dec 2016
A version of this article is also available for young scientists! Read it at
Nikolaus Volgenau | 07 Sep 2016
The Spectral camera on the 2-meter telescope on Haleakala has been taken out-of-service because of a persistent problem with the camera's shutter. In the past month, the shutter was stuck closed during observations on various nights: Aug 11-15, Aug 3
Nikolaus Volgenau | 16 Sep 2016
On Monday, 19 October, from 17 - 21 UT, LCO's observatory portal will be closed while we address some software maintenance tasks. You will not be able to submit new observing requests during this time, and the portal website will show an er
Nikolaus Volgenau | 23 Sep 2016
On 21 September, the fl11 Sinistro camera was installed on the 1-meter telescope in Dome B at Siding Spring (COJ). The telescope will be unavailable for science observations while the new Sinistro camera is commissioned.