This class of telescopes was manufactured by Telescope Technologies Ltd (now part of LCOGT) in Birkenhead, UK. Three of this class were made, which are virtually clones two of which, Faulkes Telescope North and Faulkes Telescope South, are part of the LCOGT network.
At present, telescopes of this class are the main work-horses of LCOGT. They are used by LCOGT astronomers for all the core science programmes, RoboNet, eStar and by UK and Hawaii schools.
Initial capital and operational funding for the Faulkes Telescopes was provided by The Dill Faulkes Educational Trust. The Faulkes Telescopes are now operated by Las Cumbres Observatory as a component of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.
Below is an animation of one of our 2-meter telescopes, created for us by Jon Yardley.
2m Instrumentation includes
Merope camera, E2V 42-40 CCD on a side port
- 2Kx2K, 0.14-arcsec pixels, 5-arcmin Field of View (FoV)
- Bessell BVRI, Solar, Sloan primed ugri, PanStarrs Zs,Y, H-alpha, H-beta, O-III, DDO-51 filters
Spectral camera, Fairchild CCD-486 on straight-through port
- 4Kx4K, 0.15-arcsec pixels, 10-arcmin FoV
- similar filter complement to Merope
Future Instrument: FLOYDS low resolution spectrograph on a side port
- Folded Low Order whYte-pupil Double-dispersed Spectrograph FLOYDS
- will provide low-order R~500 spectrum from 400 to 900nm in 2 orders, for velocity and flux measurements
