STILT: System Design & Performance

TL;DR

STILT is a system of small telescopes at Liverpool Telescope that has been operational since 2009, collecting wide-field sky data to search for variability, with detailed hardware, software, and performance insights.

Contribution

This paper details the design, implementation, and performance evaluation of the STILT system, a novel wide-field sky monitoring setup at Liverpool Telescope.

Findings

Operational since 2009 with consistent data collection.

Effective variability search within specified magnitude limits.

Detailed hardware and software performance analysis.

Abstract

The Small Telescopes Installed at the Liverpool Telescope (STILT) have been in operation since March 2009, collecting wide field data from their position, mounted to the Liverpool Telescope. The two instruments; SkycamT and SkycamZ have been used to create a variability search of the skies visible at La Palma with the limits of 12th and 18th R band magnitude with fields of view of 21x21 and 1x1 degrees. We provide here a description of the hardware and software setup and the performance of the system to date.