Las Cumbres Observatory has developed a set of identical 0.4-meter (diameter) telescopes at its Santa Barbara headquarters. These telescopes are wholly modified Meade telescopes with custom equatorial mounts and high-quality CCD cameras. Ten of these telescope 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, two to Cerro Tololo Observatory in Chile, one to McDonald Observatory in Texas, and two to Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. All of these telescopes are available for science observations. These telescopes are also available for education programs to use. A few hours per semester on these telescopes is reserved for a program to track earth-orbiting satellites.
Telescope Structure
| Mounting | Meade 16-inch (40cm) RCS tube and 3-element optics, mounted in LCO equatorial C-ring mounting |
|---|---|
| Basic Optics | Primary, secondary and Corrector plate (Meade) with LCO focus mechanism driving corrector plate/secondary |
| Maximum slewing speed | 10 degrees per s |
| Tracking accuracy without guiding | ~1" |
| Blind pointing accuracy | ~30" |
Instrumentation
The instruments on the 0.4 m telescopes are the SBIG STL6303 cameras.
