Dear Users and Friends of LCOGT Network,
To coincide with the start of the new (2015B) observing semester, we recently created a "network status" Google group, which we will use to distribute informational emails about, not surprisingly, the status of the LCOGT network. At the request of the Science Collaboration, we plan to issue network status reports approximately monthly. We'll also send out alerts when changes to the network occur that will impact observations, either for better or for worse, for at least one night at one site. A network status report will not be a weather report, but instead will be more like the updates that are posted to the website's Observatory Status page.
Today, there are two items that you should be aware of:
1. The Exposure Time Calculator (ETC), the tool to help you estimate the durations of your science observations, was recently updated. The code now includes photometric zero points derived from observations at all 1-meter telescope sites. In addition, a few bugs were fixed. A result of these changes is that the exposure time
2. Two Sinistro cameras are currently in transit to our Siding Spring site. These will be installed soon after arrival. We will keep you up-to-date on when one or the other Siding Spring dome is removed from the network to commission the new cameras.
As always, if you have questions about observing requests or about the Network in general, you are welcome to submit them to our Science Support team: science-support@lcogt.net (or sciencefeedback@lcogt.net).
Nikolaus
