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LCOGT Sees First Light at McDonald Observatory

LCOGT’s First 1-meter Telescope Ships to Site

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) shipped their first in-house designed and fabricated 1-meter telescope to McDonald Observatory today. Final assembly, balancing, and testing was completed over the last month and on March 26, the telescope was dismantled and packed for shipping. The truck loaded up and pulled out this morning. This marks a critical milestone for LCOGT, as seven years of development, design, assembly, and testing came to fruition with a production telescope.

First Shipment to Chile

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) achieved a critical milestone today, with two 40’ containers leaving their Santa Barbara headquarters en route to the CTIO observatory node in Chile. Inside the containers are three sets of enclosure walls designed and built by LCOGT for our 1-meter class telescopes. This is the first shipment of LCOGT-manufactured equipment to an observatory site in the global network.

LCOGT CEO Wayne Rosing Builds a 1-Meter Enclosure

On December 23, 2010, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope’s CEO Wayne Rosing and a crew of three movers from Bucks Movers and Transport Statewide arrived at LCOGT’s Goleta warehouse to see if LCOGT’s 1-meter telescope enclosures could be built in a fast and repeatable manner. “If we’re going to build fifteen of these things on mountaintops around the planet, they have to be right,” Rosing said.

Maui’s The Pfluke Times features LCOGT

Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope’s (LCOGT) Faulkes Telescope North (FTN) was featured in The Pfluke Times of Kihei, Hawai’i in two articles in a recent Sunday edition. Stating that “It is a very cool telescope,” Anthony Pfluke, the 10-year-old editor and journalist for the paper, described the telescope, the LCOGT outreach program and director, and included in the piece stunning photographs taken by himself and other participants in a homeschool session provided through LCOGT and the University of Hawai’i’s Institute for Astronomy.

LCOGT Santa Barbara Gets a Play Day for Pushing Pedals

Santa Barbara– August 2010

In April of this year, LCOGT mechanical engineer, John Hygelund, challenged fellow Santa Barbara staffers to participate in Traffic Solutions’ Bike Challenge bike commute competition that was part of a month-long series of bicycle-related events during May called CycleMAYnia.

Dedication of Telescope at McDonald Observatory Made Possible by LCOGT

After more than five years of redesign, engineering, and commissioning, the 18” handicap-accessible Wren-MarcarioAccessible Telescope (WMAT) will be rededicated at the McDonald Observatory Frank N. Bash Visitor’s Center this Saturday, July 17, 2010. The recommissioning of the telescope was completed by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) engineers and scientists, and funded by LCOGT founders Wayne Rosing and Dorothy Largay, Mike and Shirley Marcario, Mike I. and Dee Jones, Bill and Becky Wren and anonymous donors.

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