Las Cumbres Observatory has developed a set of identical 0.4-meter (diameter) telescopes at its Santa Barbara headquarters. These telescopes are Planewave Delta Rho with custom equatorial mounts and high-quality CMOS cameras. Eight of these telescopes have been deployed to LCO observatory nodes: two to Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, one to Sutherland Observatory in South Africa, two to Teide Observatory on Tenerife, one to McDonald Observatory in Texas, and two to Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. The final two will be deployed to Cerro Tololo Observatory in Chile, in March 2024. These telescopes constitute our primary education network and are also utilized for science observations.
Originally these installations were Meade telescopes with CCD cameras. The replacement began in 2023, thanks to a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
