Liverpool Telescope Operations 2019-2020
Lead Research Organisation:
Liverpool John Moores University
Department Name: Astrophysics Research Institute
Abstract
The Liverpool Telescope (LT ) (http://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/) is the world's largest and most sophisticated (in terms of range of science programmes, flexibility of scheduling, and sophistication of instrumentation) robotic telescope with a dual role to carry out internationally competitive research and deliver the key observing resource to the National Schools Observatory. The NSO offers school children near-immediate access to a world-class observatory. Since its launch in 2004, this has led to over 100,000 observing requests from over 2,500 schools. The NSO currently works with over 4000 teachers throughout the UK and Ireland. At the core of the NSO is the website which provides support material for a range of subjects and receives well over 1 million hits each year.
Since operations began in 2004, LT has specialised in delivering high impact results in time domain astrophysics. Indeed, the observatory is unique in actively encouraging rapid-response and difficult-to-schedule monitoring projects from the U.K. and Spanish communities. Refereed publications that include LT data typically average 46 citations/paper, three time the average for all astronomy papers; to date 15 such papers have appeared in the high-profile journals Nature or Science, these having on average 86 citations/paper.
The telescope has high impact science programmes in five key areas of time domain astrophysics:
* Spectroscopy simultaneous with in-situ spacecraft measurements (e.g. ESA Rosetta and NASA New Horizons)
* Exoplanet Characterization
* Cataclysmic Variables, Novae and Supernovae
* Gravitational Wave and Gamma Ray Burst counterparts
* Active Galactic Nuclei
From the outset, the goal has been to provide a wide variety of instrumentation to cater for the broad interests of the LJMU and U.K./Spanish communities. Currently, optical photometry, spectroscopy and polarimetry and infrared photometry are offered with instruments and a software environment that are capable of sampling timescales from ~10 milliseconds to ~10 years. A continuous programme of instrument upgrades has been aggressively pursued throughout the last decade. This has kept the facility competitive and ensures its position at the forefront of time domain astronomy for at least the next five years.
This application is for an STFC contribution over the period 2019-2020 to the funding for the maintenance and operation of the Liverpool Telescope, and hence the continuation of its role as a major resource both for the LJMU Astrophysics Research Institute and the wider UK community.
Since operations began in 2004, LT has specialised in delivering high impact results in time domain astrophysics. Indeed, the observatory is unique in actively encouraging rapid-response and difficult-to-schedule monitoring projects from the U.K. and Spanish communities. Refereed publications that include LT data typically average 46 citations/paper, three time the average for all astronomy papers; to date 15 such papers have appeared in the high-profile journals Nature or Science, these having on average 86 citations/paper.
The telescope has high impact science programmes in five key areas of time domain astrophysics:
* Spectroscopy simultaneous with in-situ spacecraft measurements (e.g. ESA Rosetta and NASA New Horizons)
* Exoplanet Characterization
* Cataclysmic Variables, Novae and Supernovae
* Gravitational Wave and Gamma Ray Burst counterparts
* Active Galactic Nuclei
From the outset, the goal has been to provide a wide variety of instrumentation to cater for the broad interests of the LJMU and U.K./Spanish communities. Currently, optical photometry, spectroscopy and polarimetry and infrared photometry are offered with instruments and a software environment that are capable of sampling timescales from ~10 milliseconds to ~10 years. A continuous programme of instrument upgrades has been aggressively pursued throughout the last decade. This has kept the facility competitive and ensures its position at the forefront of time domain astronomy for at least the next five years.
This application is for an STFC contribution over the period 2019-2020 to the funding for the maintenance and operation of the Liverpool Telescope, and hence the continuation of its role as a major resource both for the LJMU Astrophysics Research Institute and the wider UK community.
Planned Impact
LT has a long tradition of strong industrial engagement. The initial build of the telescope was based around the establishment of a spinout company (TTL, Telescope Technologies Ltd) which was subsequently sold in 2005 to an ex-Google employee to build a global network of small (0.4 and 1 metre) robotic telescopes.
The project has ongoing strong links with a number of local engineering companies. Much of the precision engineering required for LT instrumentation is done in collaboration with the SME engineering firm "Senar". Through the Liverpool Telescope project Senar were contracted by the university-owned company TTL to build several parts for the telescope, resulting in the company upgrading its skills and machinery to deliver the high precision needed for astronomical instrumentation. The contract safeguarded a number of jobs at the time and the company received a grant from MAS (Manufacturing Institute, via the local council organization Wirral Direct) for the purchase of a new, more accurate, CNC lathe for precision machining. Their ongoing work for LT also features as part of their advertising, using the telescope as an example of a high-profile/high-technology client. Their reputation in precision engineering for astronomical applications over the past 10 years has led to contracts with other international observatories (e.g., the new WHT Auxiliary camera and a WEAVE contract) and with CERN, producing the chain links that carry cooling pipes and electrical cables for the LHC. This activity contributed to the rating of ARI impact in the 2nd quartile in REF2014.
Skills and knowledge transfer are furthered by the direct involvement of students (undergraduate and postgraduate) in development projects. The LT team has consistently included undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students in instrument and software design and development with these projects forming the basis of several PhD theses. Most of these students have left academic research for wider industry.
LT has also had success in licensing software and hardware developed for the telescope to the Faulkes/LCOGT organization. License income of £160k plus telescope time worth an additional £180k on the LCO telescopes has been received by LJMU from this activity.
LT is a focus for a significant fraction of the extensive Public Engagement programme at ARI. As well as many talks and workshops to schools and the general public (e.g. in 2012/13 over 150 talks to over 10,000 people were given based on the LT) the LT is also key to the success of a suite of Distance Learning courses in Astronomy that attract around 200 students a year, many of whom have little or no prior experience of Higher Education.
The LT is also an important element in the Spaceport visitor attraction on the banks of the river Mersey. The attraction regularly exceeds visitor number predictions (currently at around 70,000 per year) and brings considerable income into a regeneration area. Using the standard STEAM model (Digest of Tourism Statistics, Dec. 2009 - The Mersey Partnership) for determining the economic benefits of tourism in the City Region for day visitors, this equates to a net gain of more than £2m per year. Spaceport also contributed towards the success of Mersey Ferries being ranked 1st in the City Region in 2008 - when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture - for a paid tourist attraction and an independent MORI Poll from 2006 found that 97% of visitors to Spaceport were either satisfied or very satisfied with their visit. Due to this success, the original targets for the regeneration have been met or exceeded. These include the creation of an estimated 50 new jobs, both direct and indirect, which equates to a gross value added of £1.4m pa to the City Region.
LT is the key resource of the National Schools Observatory, which has delivered over 100,000 unique observations to over 2,500 UK and Irish schools and over 1,000,000 website hits/year.
The project has ongoing strong links with a number of local engineering companies. Much of the precision engineering required for LT instrumentation is done in collaboration with the SME engineering firm "Senar". Through the Liverpool Telescope project Senar were contracted by the university-owned company TTL to build several parts for the telescope, resulting in the company upgrading its skills and machinery to deliver the high precision needed for astronomical instrumentation. The contract safeguarded a number of jobs at the time and the company received a grant from MAS (Manufacturing Institute, via the local council organization Wirral Direct) for the purchase of a new, more accurate, CNC lathe for precision machining. Their ongoing work for LT also features as part of their advertising, using the telescope as an example of a high-profile/high-technology client. Their reputation in precision engineering for astronomical applications over the past 10 years has led to contracts with other international observatories (e.g., the new WHT Auxiliary camera and a WEAVE contract) and with CERN, producing the chain links that carry cooling pipes and electrical cables for the LHC. This activity contributed to the rating of ARI impact in the 2nd quartile in REF2014.
Skills and knowledge transfer are furthered by the direct involvement of students (undergraduate and postgraduate) in development projects. The LT team has consistently included undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students in instrument and software design and development with these projects forming the basis of several PhD theses. Most of these students have left academic research for wider industry.
LT has also had success in licensing software and hardware developed for the telescope to the Faulkes/LCOGT organization. License income of £160k plus telescope time worth an additional £180k on the LCO telescopes has been received by LJMU from this activity.
LT is a focus for a significant fraction of the extensive Public Engagement programme at ARI. As well as many talks and workshops to schools and the general public (e.g. in 2012/13 over 150 talks to over 10,000 people were given based on the LT) the LT is also key to the success of a suite of Distance Learning courses in Astronomy that attract around 200 students a year, many of whom have little or no prior experience of Higher Education.
The LT is also an important element in the Spaceport visitor attraction on the banks of the river Mersey. The attraction regularly exceeds visitor number predictions (currently at around 70,000 per year) and brings considerable income into a regeneration area. Using the standard STEAM model (Digest of Tourism Statistics, Dec. 2009 - The Mersey Partnership) for determining the economic benefits of tourism in the City Region for day visitors, this equates to a net gain of more than £2m per year. Spaceport also contributed towards the success of Mersey Ferries being ranked 1st in the City Region in 2008 - when Liverpool was European Capital of Culture - for a paid tourist attraction and an independent MORI Poll from 2006 found that 97% of visitors to Spaceport were either satisfied or very satisfied with their visit. Due to this success, the original targets for the regeneration have been met or exceeded. These include the creation of an estimated 50 new jobs, both direct and indirect, which equates to a gross value added of £1.4m pa to the City Region.
LT is the key resource of the National Schools Observatory, which has delivered over 100,000 unique observations to over 2,500 UK and Irish schools and over 1,000,000 website hits/year.
Publications
Rahvar S
(2020)
Measuring limb darkening of stars in high-magnification microlensing events by the Finite Element Method
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Lucy A
(2020)
Regulation of accretion by its outflow in a symbiotic star: the 2016 outflow fast state of MWC 560
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Turbet M
(2020)
A Review of Possible Planetary Atmospheres in the TRAPPIST-1 System.
in Space science reviews
Ridden-Harper A
(2019)
Search for gas from the disintegrating rocky exoplanet K2-22b
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jiménez-Ibarra F
(2019)
An equatorial outflow in the black hole optical dipper Swift J1357.2-0933
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Pastorello A
(2019)
The evolution of luminous red nova AT 2017jfs in NGC 4470
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Laskar T
(2019)
A Reverse Shock in GRB 181201A
in The Astrophysical Journal
Jenkins J
(2019)
A low-mass triple system with a wide L/T transition brown dwarf component: NLTT 51469AB/SDSS 2131-0119
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Watkins A
(2019)
Varied origins of up-bending breaks in galaxy disks
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Holoien T
(2019)
PS18kh: A New Tidal Disruption Event with a Non-axisymmetric Accretion Disk
in The Astrophysical Journal
Koren S
(2019)
Neutrino-dark matter scattering and coincident detections of UHE neutrinos with EM sources
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Pandey S
(2019)
SN 2016B a.k.a. ASASSN-16ab: a transitional Type II supernova
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gutiérrez C
(2019)
The new 4-m robotic telescope
in Astronomische Nachrichten
Zsidi G
(2019)
The Weakening Outburst of the Young Eruptive Star V582 Aur
in The Astrophysical Journal
Zheng W
(2019)
AT 2017fvz: a nova in the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 6822
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Morgan J
(2019)
Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Pastorello A
(2019)
Luminous red novae: Stellar mergers or giant eruptions?
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Pastorello A
(2019)
A luminous stellar outburst during a long-lasting eruptive phase first, and then SN IIn 2018cnf
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Graham M
(2019)
The Zwicky Transient Facility: Science Objectives
in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Morgan R
(2019)
A DECam Search for Explosive Optical Transients Associated with IceCube Neutrino Alerts
in The Astrophysical Journal
Galbany L
(2019)
Evidence for a Chandrasekhar-mass explosion in the Ca-strong 1991bg-like type Ia supernova 2016hnk
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Saxton R
(2019)
XMMSL2 J144605.0+685735: a slow tidal disruption event
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Schanche N
(2019)
SuperWASP dispositions and false positive catalogue
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Cai Y
(2019)
The transitional gap transient AT 2018hso: new insights into the luminous red nova phenomenon
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Berghaus K
(2019)
Decays of long-lived relics and their signatures at IceCube
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Cannizzo J
(2019)
The Superoutburst Duration versus Orbital Period Relation for AM CVn Stars
in The Astronomical Journal
Goicoechea L
(2019)
Gravitational Lens System PS J0147+4630 (Andromeda's Parachute): Main Lensing Galaxy and Optical Variability of the Quasar Images
in The Astrophysical Journal
Bose S
(2019)
Strongly Bipolar Inner Ejecta of the Normal Type IIP Supernova ASASSN-16at
in The Astrophysical Journal
Boran S
(2019)
Constraints on differential Shapiro delay between neutrinos and photons from IceCube-170922A
in The European Physical Journal C
Todorov K
(2019)
Ground-based optical transmission spectrum of the hot Jupiter HAT-P-1b
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Chianese M
(2019)
Decaying dark matter at IceCube and its signature on High Energy gamma experiments
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Li Z
(2019)
PeV neutrinos from wind breakouts of type II supernovae
in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy
Freudenthal J
(2019)
Kepler Object of Interest Network III. Kepler-82f: a new non-transiting 21 M ? planet from photodynamical modelling
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Nordin J
(2019)
Transient processing and analysis using AMPEL: alert management, photometry, and evaluation of light curves
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Martone R
(2019)
A robotic pipeline for fast GRB followup with the Las Cumbrés observatory network
in Experimental Astronomy
MAGIC Collaboration
(2019)
Observation of inverse Compton emission from a long ?-ray burst.
in Nature
Hooton M
(2019)
Storms or systematics? The changing secondary eclipse depth of WASP-12b
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Mohanty S
(2019)
Cutoff of IceCube neutrino spectrum due to t-channel resonant absorption by C?B
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Rigault M
(2019)
Fully automated integral field spectrograph pipeline for the SEDMachine: pysedm
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Valeev A
(2019)
GRB 161219B/SN 2016jca: a powerful stellar collapse
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Terreran G
(2019)
SN 2016coi (ASASSN-16fp): An Energetic H-stripped Core-collapse Supernova from a Massive Stellar Progenitor with Large Mass Loss
in The Astrophysical Journal
Trakhtenbrot B
(2019)
1ES 1927+654: An AGN Caught Changing Look on a Timescale of Months
in The Astrophysical Journal
Shalyapin V
(2019)
Gravitationally Lensed Quasar SDSS J1442+4055: Redshifts of Lensing Galaxies, Time Delay, Microlensing Variability, and Intervening Metal System at z ~ 2
in The Astrophysical Journal
Shrestha Manisha
(2019)
MOPTOP: Polarimetry for time domain astrophysics
in The Extragalactic Explosive Universe: the New Era of Transient Surveys and Data-Driven Discovery
Coe M
(2019)
The semicentennial binary system PSR J2032+4127 at periastron: X-ray photometry, optical spectroscopy and SPH modelling.
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Yao Y
(2019)
ZTF Early Observations of Type Ia Supernovae. I. Properties of the 2018 Sample
in The Astrophysical Journal
Aartsen M
(2019)
Search for steady point-like sources in the astrophysical muon neutrino flux with 8 years of IceCube data
in The European Physical Journal C
| Title | robotic astronomy |
| Description | procedures, hardware and software systems for the automation of astronomical observations. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | widespread adoption of robotic observing |
| URL | https://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/ |