2nd LBTO Users' Meeting - June 20,23 - Florence, Italy. Save the date!

The LBTO 2017 Users' Meeting will take place at the Convitto della Calza, Florence, Italy, from Tuesday evening, June 20 to Friday, June 23.

With the LBT facility instruments commissioned in pairs, LBTI routinely used by all partners in incoherent or coherent mode, LINC-NIRVANA en route for Lean-MCAO observing, and the ultra-high resolution of the PEPSI spectrograph available, the 2nd Users’ Meeting will focus on enabling LBT to realize its full potential as both a pair of 8.4m telescopes and, thanks to its interferometric capabilities, a forerunner of the ELTs. 

For current or prospective LBT users, the meeting will be an opportunity to share their scientific results, projects, and aspiration for the future of the observatory, foster boundary-crossing multi-partner collaborations, discuss new observing modes and new services with the observatory staff, and prepare for the next generation of instruments on the horizon for 2018-2019, all of which exploit the unique performance of the LBT's upgraded AO system.    

Please mark the date! You will find a first set of practical information (meeting place, links to hotel reservation, talk/poster submission) by visiting the Users' Meeting website here. For further questions on the meeting, contact either the Scientific Organizing Committee (soc-um @ lbto.org) or the Local Organizing Committee (loc-um @ lbto.org).

A high-resolution picture of the  poster is available here.

LUCI1-AO Shared-Risk Science Release

Diffraction limited imaging with LUCI1 is offered in a shared-risk mode. Presently, the instrument is available for reference stars in the magnitude range 3.5 to 9.8 with degraded performance, and at design performance for fainter reference stars (down to ~16).  

It is expected that full AO performance with LUCI1, and diffraction limited imaging and spectroscopy with LUCI2, will become available in the course of 2017A. 

Observers new to AO are encouraged to consult the following references:

- Natural guide star adaptive optics systems at LBT: FLAO commissioning and science operations status, Esposito, et al., SPIE (2012)
- Field Guide to Adaptive Optics, Tyson & Frazier, SPIE Press (2012)
- Adaptive Optics and its Applications, C. Max, (click here)

A Notice to Users is available here.