Page History

Operations Staff

Operations Staff are responsible for the safe operation of the telescope at night.  Remote observers should contact their operator(s) no less than a full day ahead of their observing session to confirm when and how they will be in contact.  The semester science calendar contains the list of operators for a given night.  The night operations staff may be collectively contacted at (ldtoperator at lowell dot edu).

Jason Sanborn – Dr. José Fernández – LDT Night Operations Manager pro tem

Beck Maier – Thomas Kelley – LDT Operator

Ishara Nisley – LDT Operator

Benjamin Shafransky – LDT Operator

Cecilia Siqueiros – LDT Operator

Olivia Weiss – LDT Operator / EXPRES Observer

Instrument

Each of the instruments available for use at LDT has a main contact person.  For Facility Instruments, observers are encouraged to carefully read through the instrument manual, and contact the instrument lead in instances of technical challenges or needed changes in the manual.  The use of Visitor and PI instruments must be coordinated through the listed instrument lead, as the LDT staff do not directly support these instruments.

LDT Facility Instruments:

LMI (Large Monolithic Imager) - Dr. Phil Massey

DeVeny Optical Spectrograph - Tom Bida

NIHTS (Near IR High Throughput Spectrograph) - Dr. Nick Moskovitz

Visitor / PI Instruments:

EXPRES - Dr. Debra Fischer (Yale)

QWSSI/DSSI - Dr. Gerard van Belle (Lowell), Dr. Elliott Horch (SCSU)

& Engineering Staff 

The Instrument and Engineering Staff comprise the LDT day crew.  These individuals keep the LDT running smoothly through regular monitoring, maintenance, and upgrading of all telescope and facility systems.

Lowell Instrument Group:

Dr. Ryan Hamilton - Head of Instrumentation

Tom Bida - Senior Instrument Scientist

Michael Collins - Electronics Specialist

Ben Hardesty - Instrument Scientist

Dyer Lytle - Software Engineer

Thomas Kelley - Research Assistant, Optics and Photonics Applications Laboratory

LDT Engineering Group:

Frank Cornelius - Engineering Manager

Dr. Georgi Mandushev - Research Scientist and Facility Software Support

Mike Sweaton - LDT Electronic Engineer

Jake Tiegs - Mechanical Technician

 RIMAS (coming soon) - Dr. Alexander Kutyrev (GSFC/UMd)

Science Support

The LDT provides a Support Astronomer for assisting with observation planning, first-night observing support, and general questions about the facility.  The LDT does not operate in 'queue' or other non-classical observing modes at this time, and the Support Astronomer cannot serve as the observer's proxy during assigned nights.

Dr. Timothy Ellsworth-Bowers - Support Astronomer

Instrument

Leads

Each of the instruments available for use at LDT has a main contact person.  For Facility Instruments, observers are encouraged to carefully read through the instrument manual, and contact the instrument lead in instances of technical challenges or needed changes in the manual.  The use of Visitor and PI instruments must be coordinated through the listed instrument lead, as the LDT staff do not directly support these instruments.

LDT Facility Instruments:

LMI (Large Monolithic Imager) - Dr. Phil Massey

DeVeny Optical Spectrograph - Tom Bida

NIHTS (Near IR High Throughput Spectrograph) - Dr. Nick Moskovitz

Visitor / PI Instruments:

EXPRES - Dr. Debra Fischer (Yale) / Dr. John Michael Brewer (SFSU)

POETS - Dr. Stephen Levine (Lowell)

QWSSI - Dr. Gerard van Belle (Lowell)

RIMAS - Dr. Alexander Kutyrev (GSFC/UMd)

The Instrument and Engineering Staff comprise the LDT day crew.  These individuals keep the LDT running smoothly through regular monitoring, maintenance, and upgrading of all telescope and facility systems.

Lowell Instrument Group:

Dr. Ryan Hamilton - Head of Instrumentation

Tom Bida - Senior Instrument Scientist

Dyer Lytle - Software Engineer

LDT Engineering Group:

Frank Cornelius - Engineering Manager

Dr. Georgi Mandushev - Research Scientist and Facility Software Support

Ben Reed – Jr. Electrical Technician

Mike Sweaton - LDT Electronic Engineer

Jake Tiegs - Mechanical Technician

Logistics Contacts

The Lowell Observatory IT and Business Office Staff can assist with issues relevant to observing at the LDT.

IT issues - Scott Do, Charles von Buchwald-WrightJohn Kullman, or IT .at. lowell.edu

Lodging - Dr. José FernandezLodging - Amanda Bosh or Le Cam Nguyen

General - Catie Blazek