LCOGT Network Observatory Operations

We describe the operational capabilities of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. We summarize our hardware and software for maintaining and monitoring network health. We focus on methodologies to utilize the automated system to monitor availability of sites, instruments and telescopes, to monitor performance, permit automatic recovery, and provide automatic error reporting. The same jTCS control system is used on telescopes of apertures 0.4m, 0.8m, 1m and 2m, and for multiple instruments on each. We describe our network operational model, including workloads, and illustrate our current tools, and operational performance indicators, including telemetry and metrics reporting from on-site reductions. The system was conceived and designed to establish effective, reliable autonomous operations, with automatic monitoring and recovery - minimizing human intervention while maintaining quality. We illustrate how far we have been able to achieve that.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

A Robotic Wide-Angle H-Alpha Survey of the Southern Sky

We have completed a robotic wide-angle imaging survey of the southern sky (declination less than +15 degrees) at 656.3 nm wavelength, the H-alpha emission line of hydrogen. Each image of the resulting Southern H-Alpha Sky Survey Atlas (SHASSA) covers an area of the sky 13 degrees square at an angular resolution of approximately 0.8 arcminute, and reaches a sensitivity level of 2 rayleigh (1.2 x 10^-17 erg cm^-2 s^-1 arcsec^-2) per pixel, corresponding to an emission measure of 4 cm^-6 pc, and to a brightness temperature for microwave free-free emission of 12 microkelvins at 30 GHz. Smoothing over several pixels allows features as faint as 0.5 rayleigh to be detected.Comment: LATEX, 33 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in PASP, 113, November 2001. Further information at http://amundsen.swarthmore.edu/SHASSA

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Additions to the Myxomycetes of Singapore

v. ill. 23 cm.Also available through BioOne: http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2984/65.3.391QuarterlyMuch of Southeast Asia remains understudied for myxomycetes ( plasmodial slime molds or myxogastrids). This survey of myxomycetes was carried out at 12 study sites throughout Singapore during March 2009. Sporocarps that developed in moist-chamber cultures of bark, forest floor litter, and aerial litter were used to supplement field collections. In addition, a series of samples of various types of plant litter collected from one other study site during the summer of 2004 was processed for myxomycetes. Collectively, these efforts yielded 76 species of myxomycetes in 26 genera. Thirty-six species are new records for Singapore. The latter includes two previously unpublished records along with one collection of Didymium and one collection of Trichia that could not be assigned to any known species

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network: Keeping Education in the Dark

The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network is a privately- funded, non-profit organization that is creating a global network of telescopes ranging in size from 0.4 meter to 2 meters for educational and scientific uses. All will be equipped with high quality CCD imagers with the larger ones with spectrographs. An online interface will be used for observing both in real time and in a queue. Any registered school or group will have the capability to remotely observe using a telescope that is currently in the dark from the comfort of their classroom or science center, half a world away. Accompanying the online telescope-control interface will be a library of resources and activities that will be available in the formal classroom setting, informal groups and clubs, and for public outreach in the community for all age groups and levels of science. Using the LCOGT network as a tool to enjoy real astronomical research will not only create a new awareness and excitement towards science and technology, it will also make visible connections between science and humanities

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope: A homogeneous telescope network

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope is a research organisation in the process of designing and building a network of robotic telescopes to be used for research in time-domain astrophysics and education. The network will have complete latitude coverage in both hemispheres to allow continuous observations of any target. In other words, we will keep you in the dark. We describe the current status of our facilities and our vision for the full network

LCOGT Sites and Facilities

LCOGT is currently building and deploying a world-wide network of at least twelve 1-meter and twenty-four 0.4-meter telescopes to as many as 4 sites in the Southern hemisphere (Chile, South Africa, Eastern Australia) and 4 in the Northern hemisphere (Hawaii, West Texas, Canary Islands). Our deployment and operations model emphasizes modularity and interchangeability of major components, maintenance and troubleshooting personnel who are local to the site, and autonomy of operation. We plan to ship, install, and spare large units (in many cases entire telescopes), with minimal assembly on site