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The Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) is Lowell Observatory's flagship facility at a dark-sky site approximately 40 miles southeast of Flagstaff on the Coconino National Forest.
We support both in-person and remote observing, with the latter growing significantly in popularity following the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The LDT sports a 4.3-m thin-meniscus primary mirror supported laterally and axially by an active optics system (AOS). The telescope rides on an elevation over azimuth mount. The LDT's pointing model provides ~2" accuracy over the entire sky down to 6º 5º elevation, but ; the mount is capable of pointing to horizon. The system supports non-sidereal and ephemeris based object tracking in addition to sidereal.
Presently, the telescope is configured for the Ritchey–Chrétien (RC) focus, with an effective focal ratio of f/6.1. The mount is also configured with two large Nasmyth and 6 bent-cassegrain ports for future instrumentation; development of instruments for these would additionally require development of a tertiary mirror.
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LDT is classically scheduled by semester and does not support queue observing at this time. The typical scheduling unit is halfquarter-nights, but other units may be requested depending on the needs of the science program. Additionally, a given observing program may be spread across non-consecutive nights (or even the entire semester) for scientific or weather concerns.
A Target of Opportunity (ToO) program is available for request to supported for programs that observe unpredictable and time critical observations. These can take advantage of both time-sensitive targets and the rapid reconfigurability of the LDT's instruments.
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Large Monolithic Imager (LMI) – A 6k x 6k optical imager (field of view is 12.3' square) whose CCD is the largest that can be made using current manufacturing techniques. LMI built around a single CCD (e2v CCD231, 15micron pixels). LMI is typically operated binned 2x2 for 0.24" square pixels. A complete set of broadband photometric filters (Johnson-Cousins and SDSS), an astrometric V+R filter, and various stellar and cometary narrow-band filters are available.
DeVeny Optical Spectrograph – This A low- to medium-resolution spectrograph is on indefinite loan from Kitt Peak National Observatory (it was known there as the White Spectrograph)optical spectrograph. DeVeny has a complement of 9 gratings that provide spectral resolution or R ~ 500-4000, and includes various order-blocking filters. The instrument sports uses a 512 x 2048 CCD camera and is supported by the PypeIt spectroscopic data reduction pipeline.
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EXtreme PREcision Spectrometer (EXPRES) – This high-resolution (R~150R~143,000), bench mounted, cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph was built at the Yale Exoplanet Laboratory (PI: D. Fischer) for the purpose of hunting earth-sized exoplanets. It uses both a ThAr lamp and laser-frequency comb for high-precision wavelength calibrations. In addition to its key program, this instrument is available for other science.
Quad-camera, Wave-front-sensing, Six-wavelength-channel Speckle Interferometer (QWSSI) – This speckle imager was built at Lowell Observatory (PI: G. van Belle) and is an evolved from of the DSSI camera. QWSSI is capable of diffraction-limited observations of closely spaced objects.
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Rapid infrared IMAger Spectrometer (RIMAS) – This near-infrared imager / spectrograph is under development by GSFC and UMd and is scheduled to arrive in 2025. There is expected to be provide both low- and medium-resolution spectroscopic modes in addition to an imaging mode.