Our global network of telescopes is designed to provide maximally available optical monitoring of time variable sources, from solar system to extra-galactic objects, and ranging in brightness from about 7-20m. We are providing a distributed network with varied apertures but homogeneous instrumentation: optical imaging, with spectroscopic capabilities. A key component is a single centralized process that accepts (in real time) and schedules TAC approved observing requests across the network; then continuously updates schedules based on status, weather and other availability criteria. Requests range from occasional to continuous monitoring, at slow to high-speed cadences (imaging and fast photometry), and includes rapid response to targets of opportunity. Each node of the network must be fully autonomous, with software agents to control and monitor all functions, to provide auto-recovery as necessary, and to announce their status and capabilities up the control structure. Real-time monitoring or interaction by humans should be infrequent. Equipment is designed to be reliable over long periods to minimize hands-on maintenance, by local or LCOGT staff. Our first 1m deployment was to McDonald Obs. in April 2012. Eight more 1m telescopes are close to deployment to complete the Southern ring, scheduled by end-2012

Fulton, B. J.

Martinez, J.

Pickles, A. J.

Rosing, W.

Sand, D.

Caltech Authors - Main

PROCEEDINGS OF SPIE
SPIEDigitalLibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie
Deployment status of the Las
Cumbres Observatory Global
Telescope
A. J. Pickles, W.  Rosing, J.  Martinez, B. J. Fulton, D.
Sand
A. J. Pickles, W.  Rosing, J.  Martinez, B. J. Fulton, D.  Sand, "Deployment
status of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope," Proc. SPIE 8444,
Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes IV, 84445V (17 September 2012);
doi: 10.1117/12.925412
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2012, Amsterdam,
Netherlands
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Deployment Status of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope
A.J. Pickles, W. Rosing, J. Martinez, B.J. Fulton, D. Sand and LCOGT staff
 
 
Summary: Our global network of telescopes is designed to provide maximally available optical 
monitoring of time variable sources, from solar system to extra-galactic objects, and ranging 
in brightness from about 7-20m. We are providing a distributed network with varied apertures 
but homogeneous instrumentation: optical imaging, with spectroscopic capabilities.  A key 
component is a single centralized process that accepts (in real time) and schedules TAC 
approved observing requests across the network; then continuously updates schedules based 
on status, weather and other availability criteria. Requests range from occasional to continuous 
monitoring, at slow to high-speed cadences (imaging and fast photometry), and includes rapid 
response to targets of opportunity. Each node of the network must be fully autonomous, with 
software agents to control and monitor all functions, to provide auto-recovery as necessary, 
and to announce their status and capabilities up the control structure. Real-time monitoring or 
interaction by humans should be infrequent. Equipment is designed to be reliable over long 
periods to minimize hands-on maintenance, by local or LCOGT staff. Our first 1m deployment 
was to McDonald Obs. in April 2012. Eight more 1m telescopes are close to deployment to 
complete the Southern ring, scheduled by end-2012.
 
Global Network: In the southern hemisphere, coverage is achieved by siting telescopes at 
three locations, roughly 8-hours apart: CTIO in Chile, SAAO at Sutherland, South Africa, and 
Siding Spring Observatory (SSO, ANU) in Australia.
 
Each site consists of 3 deep concrete piers surrounded by circular floors for 6-m diameter 
domes on custom (metal) wall sets. The walls were assembled at our workshops and shipped 
to site in pre-fabricated form, together with the domes shipped from Ash. They were assembled 
there by LCOGT and local staff from the host institution. Additionally each site has 3 rectangular 
Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes IV, edited by Larry M. Stepp, Roberto Gilmozzi, Helen J. Hall, 
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8444, 84445V · © 2012 SPIE · CCC code: 0277-786/12/$18 · doi: 10.1117/12.925412
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pads for clamshell enclosures, again designed and built at our workshops and to be shipped 
to site1,2.  Each "Aqawan" clamshell can contain two 0.4m mounts, some supporting 0.4m 
telescopes, some supporting a range of ancillary instrumentation.  http://lcogt.net/network/0.4m
 
Sites include conduits between each pad and a centralized "Site Services Building" (SSB), for 
power, network, data and spectroscopic fibers, and Clean Dry Air (CDA).  The SSB is a SeaBox 
container assembled at Santa Barbara with site computers, UPS, safety equipment, and 
supporting a Site Environmental Monitoring System (SEMS). After assembly, each enclosure 
is equipped with control panels, connected to the SSB and network, and tested for remote 
operation, ready to receive pre-assembled telescopes. Sites and telescopes are made of 
modular components.
 
Fig 1. Three domes, SSB, Storage Container at CTIO.    Fig 2. Three domes at SAAO, and pads for Aqawan Clamshell
 
Figures 1-2 show details of the installed infrastructure at CTIO and SAAO, as of June 2012.  
Domes are complete and control panels and power and IT connections are being installed. Our 
goal is to have eight 1-m telescopes operating at these two Southern sites and SSO by end-
2012, together with the existing 2-m FTS at SSO.    http://lcogt.net/network/2m
 
 
The Northern hemisphere geographical distribution 
is more complicated. As a monitoring organization, 
we prefer established sites with clear weather, 
reasonable image quality, and host institutions that 
we can partner with technically and scientifically. 
These include Haleakala on Maui (2-m FTN, U. 
Hawai`i), Byrne Observatory at Sedgwick (BOS 
0.8m, UCSB), McDonald Observatory (U. Texas), 
Teide Observatory (IAC) in the Canary Islands, and  
a potential site in China. Fig 3. shows the currently 
working 1-m telescope being installed at McDonald 
Observatory. http://lcogt.net/network/1m
 
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Existing and ongoing deployments are summarized in the table. Numbers in parentheses are 
constructed but still to be deployed. We have two working 1m telescopes, at McDonald and 
Santa Barbara (SBA), and eight being assembled in our shops; we have parts for 6 additional 
1m telescopes. We have two working 0.4m mounts at SBA, and more being assembled. One 
cross-beam 0m4 mount is being used at FTN, Haleakala for the ASAS-3N survey telescope16. 
Three 1m telescopes will be deployed to each of CTIO and SAAO, and two to SSO by end 
2012. Further development in the Northern hemisphere, and of 0.4m telescopes, will proceed 
after the Southern Ring is well established, and dependent on funding.
 
Site 2m Domes 1m 0m8 Aqawan 0m4 Ready
FTN 1      2005
SBA  1 1  1 2 2010
BOS  1  1   2009
McDonald  1(+1) 1(+1)  (2) (4) Apr 2012, (2013)
Teide  (2) (2)  (2) (4) (2014)
CTIO  3 (3)  (3) (6) (Aug 2012)
SAAO  3 (3)  (3) (6) (Oct 2012)
SSO 1 (2) (2)  (2) (4) 2005, (2012)
 
Telescope Capabilities and Instrumentation, see also  http://lcogt.net/network
 
2m: FTN (Haleakala) and FTS (SSO), each F/10 alt-az + Cassegrain rotator, built by TTL
● Merope imager: E2V 42-40 CCD on a side port (3 mirrors), good QE in UV and Yband
○ 2Kx2K, 0.14 arcsec pixels, 5-arcmin Field of View (FoV)
● Spectral imager: Fairchild CCD-486 BI, straight through port (2 mirrors)
○ 4Kx4K, 0.15 arcsec pixels, 10-arcmin FoV, high QE in B-Z
● Both above with Johnson/Cousins UBVRI, Sloan primed ugri, PanStarrs ZsYs filters
● NEW: Folded Low Order whYte-pupil Double-dispersed Spectrograph, FLOYDS
○ R~500 330-1000nm flux calibrated spectra of faint sources3,20
 
1m: Equatorial C-ring mounts4, steel and carbon-fiber OTA5. Cass F/8 imager and 4 off-
axis folded side ports for autoguiding, LIHSP6 and fiber-fed spectroscopy7.
● Currently SBIG 16803 4Kx4K CCD, 0.23 arcsec pixels, 16-arcmin FoV
● 2013: replace by Sinistro CCD-486 BI imager, Cryotiger cooling
○ same CCD as Spectral, but LCOGT electronics for fast & low-noise readout
○ 0.39 arcsec pixels, 27-arcmin FoV, flexible readout modes8
● Both with custom Astrodon UBVRI, ugri, ZsYs, nb filters and carbon-fiber shutter wheel
● Andor iXon-3  EM-CCD, 1Kx1K, 0.3 arcsec pixels, 6-arcmin FoV, LIHSP
● Fiber Feed to Medium Resolution Spectrograph lcogt.net/network/instrumentation/nres
 
 
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0m4: C-ring mount, Carbon fiber tube, Meade F/8 Optics
● LCOGT mount, drive, focus and Blackfin control
● SBIG STX-6303 CCD, 2Kx3K, 0.6 arcsec pixels, 20x30-arcmin FoV
● or Andor Luca-R EVM-CCD, 1Kx1K, 0.3 arcsec pixels, 5-arcmin FoV
 
Typical exposure times for an r=18mag object in half-moon to S/N=100 for different apertures.
2m 1m 0m4
40sec 120sec 800sec
 
 
Network and Telescope Control Software
 
LCOGT have designed and built a comprehensive new java based Telescope Control System 
(jTCS) utilizing the Java Agent DEvelopment (JADE) framework9. This is working on our 
1m and 0m4 telescopes, and will be retro-fitted to our 2m telescopes to bring them into the 
globally scheduled network. All functionality is available via web URLs to provide a variety of 
engineering and user interfaces. Briefly this framework provides: 
● Astrometric agent and guiding based on the TPK kernel10, and using astrometry.net for 
automatic WCS fitting in real-time.
● Automatic Tpoint modeling using automatic WCS fits to images. Currently we are 
achieving better than 10-arcsec RMS pointing across the sky. These features are also 
used during deployment to calculate fixator adjustments for accurate polar alignment of 
equatorial mounts.
● Agents monitoring IERS bulletins, to configure each telescope, for each instrument and 
their relative positioning within the focal plane. Each instrument is automatically aligned 
on-sky.
● Agents to control and monitor multiple instrument and guider selection, filter wheels, 
exposure and subsystem control for scheduled observations. Guiding can be configured 
on any instrument, for self-guiding or off-axis instrument guiding.
● Agents monitor, and attempt to recover any subsystem, including power-cycling when 
necessary, to maintain autonomous operations. 
● Transparency agent compares sextractor magnitudes of stars measured in each field 
(any filter), matched via fitted WCS coordinates to standards from Landolt, Stetson, 
Sloan (including Southern standards), Tycho and APASS.
● Context camera(s) deployed at each site to monitor extinction and photometric quality.
● Flash reduced data available on-site for automatic quality checking.
● Proposal Observation Network Database (POND) monitors observations from request to 
completion.
● Observatory Reduction and Acquisition Control (ORAC-DR11 ) pipeline to remove 
instrument signatures and derive source information stored in a DB hosted by IPAC.
● Network Scheduler to distribute and monitor observations across the network, monitor 
weather and availability feedback from nodes, and re-schedule as necessary.
 
 
 
 
 
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Fig 4. Light curve of a white dwarf (WD) being occulted by a cool faint object of unknown type, probably low mass star. Lowest 
points indicate the WD was not detected, as also seen in the video. From LCOGT 1m #08 at McDonald Obs, 2-May-2012 (BJ 
Fulton).
 
 
 
Fig 5. Spectrum of SN2012cg obtained recently with FLOYDS on the 2m FTS.  Top: The two dimensional spectrum of SN2012cg 
as seen on the Andor Newton 2048x512 CCD: the first order spectrum extends from ~550 nm to 1 micron (lower trace) and the 
second order spectrum from ~320 nm to 570 nm (upper trace).  Observing first and second orders simultaneously allows for efficient 
exposures and large wavelength coverage in a single exposure.   Bottom Left: Extracted, flux-calibrated one dimensional spectrum 
of SN2012cg taken with FLOYDS in ten minutes of integration time (black), compared  with Gemini/GMOS spectrum (red) taken 
within two days of the FLOYDS spectrum, with a three minute integration, suggesting that FLOYDS throughput compares favorably.  
Bottom Right: Acquisition image of SN2012cg, shown with the supernova in the slit.  
 
In 2011 LCOGT astronomers contributed to over 100 refereed publications12-19, using LCOGT 
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 8444  84445V-5
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and other facilities. Also in 2011 there were over 100 additional publications from other 
astronomers using LCOGT facilities, currently mainly FTN and FTS. We anticipate increased 
scientific output as our network grows, from our own scientific staff, partner organizations, and 
especially through the advent of key projects utilizing our facilities. LCOGT’s goal is to deploy 
the network and use it scientifically and productively. All data will become public after a 12-
month proprietary period, to facilitate science analysis of new and historical variable sources.
 
Partner science and educational organizations include the Faulkes Educational Trust, RoboNet, 
UH, UCSB, UT, IAC, CTIO, SAAO, ANU, and school groups in the UK and Hawai`i. The 
Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), managed by St. Andrews University, has 
contributed to the deployment and operational costs of two Southern 1m telescopes, resulting 
in additional network time for them. LCOGT are exploring avenues for additional funding to 
complete and operate the Northern ring.
 
References
 
[1] Martinez J., et.al. “LCOGT Sites and Site Operations”, Proc. SPIE 7737, 16 (2010)
[2] Martinez J., “LCOGT Sites and Facilities”, Telescopes from Afar Conference, Hawai`i (2011) 
[3] Sand, D. et.al., “FLOYDS: A robotic spectrograph for the Faulkes Telescopes”, AAS, 2181, 3203 
(2011)
[4] Dubberley M.A., "High-precision robotic equatorial C-ring telescope mounts," Proc. SPIE 7739, 55 
(2010)
[5] Haldeman B.J. et.al., "Design and performance characterization of the LCOGT 1m Optical Tube 
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(2011)
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[10] Terrett, D.L., “A C++ class library for telescope pointing”, Proc. SPIE 6274, 12 (2006)
[11] Bridger, A., et.al., “Observing control and Data Reduction at UKIRT”, Proc. SPIE 3349, 184 (1998)
[12] Bianco F. et.al., "Daily Photometry of SN 2011fe, the youngest Type !a SN, from u through K-band,", 
AAS, 2192, 4223 (2012)
[13] Elliot J.L. et.al., “Size and albedo of Kuiper belt object 55636 from a stellar occultation”, Nature, 465, 
897 (2010)
[14] Howell, D.A., "Supernova Science at LCOGT," AAS, 2173, 3731 (2011)
[15] Lister T.A., "Solar System Science with Robotic Telescopes," IAUS 385, 352 (2012)
[16] Prieto, J.L. et.al., “ASAS-SN and Swift follow-up of PSN J10081059+5150570: An Unusual Type IIn 
Supernova?”, ATel #3749 (2011)
[17] Ross R.J., "LCOGT: Keeping Education in the Dark", ASPC 443, 309 (2011)
[18] Shporer A. et.al., "The LCOGT network," IAUS 276, 553 (2011)
[19] Street R.A. et al,, "A Global Robotic Telescope Network for Time-Domain Science," IAUS 285, 408 
(2012)
[20] Sand D., et.al. “La Silla-QUEST detection and FLOYDS classification of LSQ12cpf as a SN Ia near 
maximum”, Atel #4147 (2012).
 
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Deployment status of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope

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Deployment status of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope

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