Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) is a young organization
dedicated to time-domain observations at optical and (potentially) near-IR
wavelengths. To this end, LCOGT is constructing a world-wide network of
telescopes, including the two 2m Faulkes telescopes, as many as 17 x 1m
telescopes, and as many as 23 x 40cm telescopes. These telescopes initially
will be outfitted for imaging and (excepting the 40cm telescopes) spectroscopy
at wavelengths between the atmospheric UV cutoff and the roughly 1-micron limit
of silicon detectors. Since the first of LCOGT's 1m telescopes are now being
deployed, we lay out here LCOGT's scientific goals and the requirements that
these goals place on network architecture and performance, we summarize the
network's present and projected level of development, and we describe our
expected schedule for completing it. In the bulk of the paper, we describe in
detail the technical approaches that we have adopted to attain the desired
performance. In particular, we discuss our choices for the number and location
of network sites, for the number and sizes of telescopes, for the
specifications of the first generation of instruments, for the software that
will schedule and control the network's telescopes and reduce and archive its
data, and for the structure of the scientific and educational programs for
which the network will provide observations.Comment: 59 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. AAS Latex v5.2. Accepted for
publication in Pub. Astr. Soc. Pacifi
The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) is an ambitious project to build and operate, within 5 years, a worldwide robotic network of 50 0.4, 1, and 2 m telescopes sharing identical instrumentation and optimized for precision photometry of time-varying sources. The telescopes, instrumentation, and software are all developed in house with two 2 m telescopes already installed. The LCOGT Imaging Lab is responsible for assembly and characterization of the network's cameras and instrumentation. In addition to a fully equipped CNC machine shop, two electronics labs, and a future optics lab, the Imaging Lab is designed from the ground up to be a superb environment for bare detectors, precision filters, and assembled instruments. At the heart of the lab is an ISO class 5 cleanroom with full ionization. Surrounding this, the class 7 main lab houses equipment for detector characterization including QE and CTE, and equipment for measuring transmission and reflection of optics. Although the first science cameras installed, two TEC cooled e2v 42-40 deep depletion based units and two CryoTiger cooled Fairchild Imaging CCD486-BI based units, are from outside manufacturers, their 18 position filter wheels and the remainder of the network's science cameras, controllers, and instrumentation will be built in house. Currently being designed, the first generation LCOGT cameras for the network's 1 m telescopes use existing CCD486-BI devices and an in-house controller. Additionally, the controller uses digital signal processing to optimize readout noise vs. speed, and all instrumentation uses embedded microprocessors for communication over ethernet.
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