Three of LCO's 0.4m telescopes, which hitherto had made observations exclusively of satellites and space debris, are now making science observations. So, if you are an investigator on a project that was granted 0.4m-time, the scheduler may assign your observation requests to one of these "new" telescopes. The locations, camera codes, and dates of first observations for these telescopes are as follows:
- Siding Spring (Australia); camera = kb97; start date = 2017-06-16.
- Teide (Tenerife); camera = kb88; start date = 2017-06-20.
- Haleakala (Maui); camera = kb82; start date = 2017-06-20.
BANZAI-processing of images from these telescopes has begun, and data are available in the archive.
We were recently made aware of a bug that may affect some of you. If you compose an observation request for a non-sidereal target, then the "Minimum Lunar Separation" constraint is ignored. This means that the scheduler will consider it acceptable to execute your request at a time when your favorite asteroid (for example) is right next to the big shiny moon! Our talented but overcommitted software team will work to remedy the problem; we'll let you know when it's been fixed.
For those of you interested in the status of NRES, a brief progress report has been posted in the Instruments section of the website. The report was presented to LCO's Science Advisory Committee on June 1.
The Sinistro camera (fl04) in Dome C at Cerro Tololo was made operational on 2017-06-08. Unfortunately, it malfunctioned after only 6 nights, and it is again not available for science observations.
The 2-meter telescope on Haleakala is also still not in service because of a series of problems with a refrigeration unit.
