We have made some updates to the website in the past couple of months. Here are the highlights.
Search "Whats up"
If you would like some suggestions for what to observe in the night sky look no further than search/whatsup. It is very simple to use and will give you suggestions for objects to observe in seconds. You need to select your observing location (one of the LCOGT sites across the globe), the time and date of your observations and you can click submit. You can limit what the search returns to Extra-solar planets, supernovae, asteroids, or guided tours of the sky or leave the default setting to see visible objects from all of the categories. There are education programs to help with observing extra-solar planets, supernovae, and asteroids, so make sure you take a look at them if you would like to be involved.
The Guided Tours of the sky will show you a large selection of objects separated out into different classes (e.g. globular clusters, galaxies), with a brief description and observing tips. These are exactly the same as the tours that are available through the RTI. You can also see if any of the Guided Tour objects have been observed before using the 'Archive Image' link.
Network map
We have integrated the map of the global network with Google Maps. This allows you to zoom into any of the LCOGT sites, and switch between satellite and terrain view.
Education activities
In case you missed them, we have added some more education activities over the past few months.
If you live in a country where you can access the network (UK, Ireland and Hawai'i) you can make observations which could help to discover extra-solar planets. Join the Observing Exoplanets group for more information and updates.
If you do not have any observing time available you can play Messier Bingo. We have selected the 40 most impressive examples of Messier catalogue objects which have been taken with the LCOGT network and made a game of Bingo out of them. Play it now!
Email updates
Don't forget to sign up for our email update newsletter to find out more about what is going on at LCOGT, including when countries across the world will be able to access our network of telescopes.
