May 31 is the last day that LCOGT's archive at IPAC will be available. If you haven't yet switched to retrieving your data from our new archive, you must do so after today. The description of the archive (available at https://lcogt.net/documentation/archive-documentation/) has been substantially improved since the archive was opened. The documentation includes information on the data products available and how to search for images. If you have questions that can't be answered by the information available there, please send an email to science-support@lcogt.net.
The shutter on the Spectral camera on Faulkes Telescope North (the 2-meter telescope in Hawaii) has been repaired. The camera was returned to the Network and acquired its first science observations on the night of May 29 (UT May 30).
The SBIG camera (kb71) on the 1-meter telescope in Dome B at our Australia site was replaced with a different SBIG camera (kb77). The new SBIG has a different shutter mechanism, which we hope will reduce the number of images corrupted by the shutter getting "stuck" in the frame. Our analysis of frames acquired with kb71 during April 2016 indicate that perhaps as many as 20% of frames were corrupted because the shutter obscured the CCD. The processing of frames acquired with kb77 will be delayed until we acquire sufficient flat fields.
Shrouds were installed on the 1-meter telescopes in Australia, South Africa, and Texas this month. The shrouds wrap around the trusses that support the secondary mirrors. The shrouds are made of a lightweight but opaque material, and they reduce the amount of moonlight that gets to the CCDs.
