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Compare and Contrast SONG and LCOGT

Compare and Contrast SONG and LCOGT. Tim Brown tbrown@lcogt.net Sep 17, 2011 Charleston College/SONG4. FTN, Rob Ratkowski. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT):. An astronomical institute dedicated to time-domain astronomy.

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Compare and Contrast SONG and LCOGT

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  1. Compare and Contrast SONG and LCOGT Tim Brown tbrown@lcogt.net Sep 17, 2011 Charleston College/SONG4 FTN, Rob Ratkowski

  2. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT): An astronomical institute dedicated to time-domain astronomy. which is to say An institute that aims to respond to the challenges and to exploit the opportunities inherent in building a world-wide network of optical night-time telescopes.

  3. We Are a Medium-Size Institute ~60 total staff 19 PhD Astronomers ~30 Engineers and technicians Mostly at headquarters near Santa Barbara, CA, but also in England, Hawaii, and Australia.

  4. We Operate the Faulkes 2.0m Telescopes • Two telescopes designed by TTL • Acquired by LCOGT in 2005 • Both telescopes operational • • Significant educational component • Continuous improvement program • Improve reliability • Improve science output

  5. We Do Science…. Extrasolar Planets Supernovae Solar System Variable & Pulsating Stars

  6. …..While We Build A Network of Telescopes

  7. What will this network look like? • Northern Network • Maui: Haleakala • Texas: McDonald • Canary Islands: IAC • Asia: Likely Xinjian AO • Southern Network • Chile: CTIO • South Africa: SAAO • Australia: SSO Probably 7 sites:

  8. What Will a Site Look Like? Up to 6 x 0.4m Telescopes Site Services Storage 3 x 1.0m Telescopes All telescopes will be robots: no people are needed on site for normal operation, and almost always, the telescopes will run autonomously, with nobody directly controlling them.

  9. Site Development

  10. CTIO Node

  11. SAAO Node

  12. UT McDonald Node (with help from Photoshop)

  13. Teide Observatory Site

  14. Urumqi, China: Qitai

  15. What Does a 1m Telescope Look Like? (Ans: No Frills) 1.0m f/8 Ritchey-Chretien with wide-field corrector. Field of View up to 40 arcmin square; ~24 arcmin with 4K x 4K 15-micron pixel CCD Equatorial mounting (split ring) Blind pointing accurate to < 5 arcsec Slew speed > 10 degree/s 18.5-ft (6m) dome with wide slit Search youtube “LCOGT” for a nice video about the 1m design.

  16. What Does 1m Instrumentation Look Like? Sinistro

  17. Sinistro Fit Test First image w/ Fairchild 4K x 4K CCD

  18. Lucky Imaging / Fast Photometry LIHSP – A 1st (maybe 0th) generation lucky camera. Single color (w/ filter wheel selection) Image scale 0.13 arcsec/pix Max FOV 160 arcsec Frame rate <= 30 images/s. 1 such camera on every telescope (40cm, 1m, 2m)

  19. Medium-Res Spectrograph Prototype Cross-dispersed echelle, fiber-fed R = 25000 2K x 2K CCD ThAr reference fiber 2 simultaneous star fibers 380nm <= l<= 800nm Thermal & pressure control Robotic star acquisition

  20. Medium-Res Spectrograph Cross-dispersed echelle, fiber-fed R = 45000 4K x 4K CCD, R=4 grating ThAr reference fiber 3 simultaneous star fibers 380nm <= l<= 900nm (full coverage) Thermal & pressure control Robotic star acquisition This version is under design now, will go into production about Q2 2012.

  21. FLOYDS -- Low-Res Spectrograph for 2m Telescopes R = 400-800 Very efficient Main function SNe classification

  22. Software Overview Telescope, Instruments Site Central planning, Control, Archive Telescope, Instruments Site Telescope, Instruments Site Telescope, Instruments Modular (upgradable) software units Outside world sees only the Center Unpredictable events may arise at any level, and are handled at all levels. Users Events TAC

  23. Timeline 3 x domes complete at CTIO Aug 2011. 3 x domes complete at SAAO Nov 2011. 1st 1m telescope plus cluster of 0.4m operational at CTIO ~ Q1 2012 1st telescope to 2nd site (SAAO) in Q2 2012. Next (largely in parallel) do domes and concrete work at Siding Spring, (Australia), McDonald Observatory (Texas, USA), Tenerife (Canary Islands) and Haleakala (Hawaii). Order and timing will depend on pace of earlier construction. Fill in sites with 4 to 6 x 1m telescopes per year until all sites are complete. Install 0.4m telescopes in parallel. Aim to finish by end of 2014.

  24. LCOGT / SONG Comparison SONG LCOGT Areas of Science Asteroseismology, Microlensing, RV planets Microlensing, transiting planets, supernovae, asteroseismology, asteroids/KBOs, AGN, ….. Telescope Aperture 1m 1m Instruments RV spectrograph, fast imager CCD imager, fast imager, RV spectrograph 7 Number of Sites >~ 3 2 or 3 1m + 2 or 3 40cm Telescopes/Site 1 2 x 2m Faulkes Telescopes (imaging, fast imaging, spectroscopy 20 x 40cm Telescopes (imaging, fast imaging) Education and Science uses. Other Facilities --

  25. General Thoughts LCOGT has wider scientific scope than SONG, but has its own limitations. Trying to do everything invites disaster. Cooperation in microlensing (both observation and modeling) May be very productive. Cooperation in spectroscopy may be harder, because of differing programmatic and technical choices made by SONG and LCOGT. SONG should think about how much it wants to do searches for new objects, as opposed to follow-up of known ones.

  26. The End

  27. SSO: 1.0m “B”

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