The Liverpool Telescope's SPRAT spectrograph obtained the first spectra of a broad-lined stripped-envelope supernova last year, just seven hours after discovery by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).

The SPRAT spectra contributed to the study of the supernova, named “SN2018gep”. The results of the study are presented in a recent paper by Ho et al submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. The authors believe this is the earliest-ever spectrum of a stripped-envelope supernova, in terms of temperature evolution. [full story]

This year the Liverpool Telescope celebrated 15 years of continuous robotic observation of the Universe. The telescope went robotic for the first time on 22nd April 2004 (see archive News item) and routine robotic operations began in December 2004. Since then the LT has been delivering high impact science by robotically observing the night sky from its home on the Canary Island of La Palma.

To mark this milestone, Liverpool John Moores University's Astrophysics Research Institute held a celebration on 24th April at nearby Sensor City in Liverpool. The evening brought together members of the LT team, past and present, to provide an exciting history from concept to construction with an insight into daily operation. [full story and photos]

An international team of astrophysicists have uncovered an enormous bubble currently being "blown" by the regular eruptions from a binary star system within the Andromeda Galaxy.

As reported in this week's Nature, recent observations with the Liverpool Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope, supported by spectroscopy from the Gran Telescopio Canarias, and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (some of the largest astronomy facilities on Earth) discovered this enormous shell-like nebula surrounding ‘M31N 2008-12a’, a recurrent novae located in our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy. At almost 400 lightyears across and still growing, this shell is far bigger than a typical nova remnant (usually around a lightyear in size) and even larger than most supernova remnants. [full story]

We have recently launched a new website for the Liverpool Telescope 2 or "New Robotic Telescope (NRT)" project. The webpages at www.robotictelescope.org detail the science case, NRT team and latest news items in relation to the new telescope. The NRT team are currently preparing the Phase A design of the new 4-metre fully robotic and autonomous telescope, ready for a design board review in the Spring. The NRT will slew faster than the LT and be on target taking data within 30 seconds of trigger, allowing us to explore more rapidly fading targets. [full story]

The New Robotic Telescope (NRT) group will be organising a session at NAM2019, this year’s National Astronomy Meeting (NAM), from 30th June – 4th July. Hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society, NAM2019 will be held at Lancaster University. As part of the 4-day conference, two 90 minute sessions will be held to discuss the future science topics for the NRT, along with the instrumentation requirements for the most effective time domain research. [full story]

The Liverpool Telescope recently made mid-infrared images of the Moon during January's lunar eclipse. This was a first for the LT, which normally observes in the optical or near-infrared part of the spectrum. The observations were made as part of an experiment to see what data could be collected with an off-the-shelf uncooled thermal infrared microbolometer array camera sensitive to the 7-14 micron wavelength range. These cameras are much cheaper than their cooled counterparts. Maisie Rashman, co-investigator in this experiment and a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University's Astrophysics Research Institute, said "Once partial eclipse started we were able to see lots of small very bright, almost point, sources appear." [full story]