The Liverpool Telescope is now accepting Reactive Time Proposals from research groups based in Spain.

Spanish and UK-based PIs may now apply at any time of the year for a few hours of telescope time to: (i) conduct feasibility studies for future 'full' proposals, (ii) respond to newly-discovered targets-of-opportunity, or (iii) to propose observations in support of new projects that have just been allocated time on other telescopes. Full details and access to the web-based proposal form are available here.

The Liverpool Telescope will be holding a session at this year's U.K. National Astronomy Meeting which is to be held in St Andrews, Scotland. Two 75 minute sessions are currently scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, 1st July. The goal of these sessions is to discuss Time Domain astronomy, large-scale monitoring programmes, and observations of variables and transients. A number of abstracts were received and Oral presentations have been selected. The TENTATIVE schedule for the meeting is now available.

A team of semi-professional astronomers based in the UK and Italy are using the combined power of the 2 metre Liverpool Telescope and the twin 2 metre Faulkes Telescopes as part of an extended comet research project. With support from Liverpool John Moores Astrophysics Research Institute, Nick Howes and Ernesto Guido of the Remanzacco Observatory have just started a new observing programme which focuses on the so-called "Comet of the Century", comet C/2012 S1 ISON. [full story]

The Liverpool Telescope recently released its Call for Observing Proposals for semester 13B. The deadline for submission of proposals to the STFC Panel for the Allocation of Telescope Time (PATT) has passed (it was Wednesday, 3rd April 2013). The same deadline applies to the submission of proposals to the internal JMU TAG by JMU staff. Please see the Phase 1 page for further details.

The Liverpool Telescope will be holding a session at this year's U.K. National Astronomy Meeting which is to be held in St Andrews, Scotland. Two 75 minute sessions are currently scheduled for Monday 1st July. The goal of these sessions is to discuss recent results, instrumentation, and plans for the LT's successor, the "LT2".

LT users wishing to present talks or posters on Time Domain astronomy, large-scale monitoring projects, or observations of transients should note that the deadline for submission of abstracts is now April 1st. (UPDATE: 16 abstracts were submitted to this session; thanks to everyone for contributing - it should be a great meeting!)
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Sequence of RISE images showing tracking of asteroid 2012 DA14 while it was moving at 5.5 arcseconds per second relative to background stars. (© 2013 Liverpool Telescope)

The Liverpool Telescope locked on to asteroid 2012 DA14 during its "close shave" flyby on 15th February, demonstrating its ability to track "non-sidereally" on an object moving at least 5 arcsec/sec against the background stars. The same asteroid, smaller than a Boeing 747 airliner, was observed again a week later when it was more than 4,000,000 km from Earth, and as faint as a candle over 4,000 km away. Performed as part of research into asteroid tracking techniques, these tests were made using three of the LT's suite of detectors: RISE, SkyCamZ, and IO:O.
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In 2012 the Liverpool Telescope (LT) continued the trend of improved performance and reliability seen in recent years. Indeed, over semesters 12A and 12B the LT recorded a rate of just 2.4% lost to technical down time. This is a quite remarkable statistic when one considers that the LT is robotically controlled, its instrument suite is under constant development, and nobody is available at the telescope to flip a switch or reboot a computer....
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