Scientists on the South Coast have received a large grant to build a new telescope.
The Las Cumbres Observatory also known as LCO – based in Goleta – has been given $1 million from the Heising-Simons Foundation to build a one-meter robotic telescope that will be located at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.
LCO president and director Todd Boroson says while the observatory has a global network of robotic telescopes, it doesn’t have enough coverage to fully monitor astronomical events in the northern sky.
"If they take place at a time when neither our site in Texas nor our site in Hawaii can get them, we miss them entirely. So, the overall goal is to complete the northern ring," he said.
This telescope will be a step towards 24-hour continuous monitoring in the northern sky so its astronomers don’t miss things like exploding stars or moving asteroids.