San Diego State University desires to build a Large Robotic Telescope of the 100-inch class at its Mount Laguna Observatory. The telescope would be designed to run autonomously and serve serveral astronomers' research programs per night and make use of the Internet to recieve observing requests, prioritize and schedule the observing sequence and proper auxiliary instrument, and execute the observations. Data would then be returned to astronomers via the Internet. An important element in the project would be to combine forces with other similar telescopes either currently located or planned around the globe in both hemispheres to exploit the time domain.
In the tradition of many great American observatories (Lick, McDonald, Yerkes, and Palomar) Mount Laguna Observatory is seeking private funding for this instrument. However, SDSU also desires to have other academic partners in this endeavor. NASA's Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics (LASP) at the Goddard Space Flight Center has signed a Memorandum of Agreement to supply Mount Laguna Observatory with a stream of state-of-the-art auxiliary instruments for the telescope in exchange for 10% of the observing time. These auxiliary instruments are to be fully functional prototypes of instruments intended for future space flight missions.
This Large Robotic Telescope would be located on the knoll above, and to the south of, the Smith 24-inch telescope. In this north-facing picture taken from the knoll, the dome of the 24-inch telescope is in the foreground, with the dome for the 16-inch telescope behind it, and the dome for the Buller 21-inch telescope just visible to the left. The building for the 40-inch telescope is behind trees to the right of the picture.
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