LCO purchased the twin Faulkes Telescopes in 2005, together with the company that originally built them, Telescope Technologies Limited, which was based in Liverpool UK. Faulkes Telescope North (FTN) is located at Haleakala Observatory, on Maui, Hawaii, and Faulkes Telescope South (FTS) is at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), in eastern Australia. The same company was also responsible for the Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands and the Girawali Telescope in Pune, India, which are of similar design. The telescopes were designed to be robotically operated from the start, but the original software was replaced by 2014, so that all LCO facilities now operate through the same software. Both telescopes support a range of instruments which are always available, mounted on different ports. These currently include the Spectral camera, the FLOYDS low resolution spectrograph and the MuSCAT3 camera (FTN only).
Telescope Structure
| Mounting | Altitude Azimuth (ALT-AZ) |
|---|---|
| Basic Optics | Ritchey-Chretien Cassegrain |
| Maximum slewing speed | 2 degrees per s |
| Servo settling time | less than 5 s |
| Blind pointing accuracy | between 3 to 10 arcsec depending on cassegrain axis position |
| Altitude limit | 25 degrees (airmass ~2.36) |
| Hour angle limits | -12 to +12 hours (but Cassegrain derotator limits also apply) |
Instrumentation
The instruments on the 2m telescopes are the Spectral camera, the FLOYDS low resolution spectrograph and the MuSCAT3 camera (FTN only).
A night in the life of The Faulkes Telescope South
