Posted on Feb 15, 2024

LBT 20th! The Large Binocular Telescope: 20 Years of Innovation and Discovery - Tucson, April 13, 2024.
The year 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Large Binocular Telescope. Click here for more information.

Posted on Nov 22, 2023

LBTO Science Conference - Tucson, AZ April 11-13, 2024
First announcement - LBTO Conference: Direct Imaging & Characterization of Exoplanets in the ELT Era. Click here for more information.

Posted on May 13, 2023

LBT Italian Call 2023-24 closed
Expired: Friday May 12th, 2023, 24:00 CEST


Posted on April 17, 2023
LBT Call for Proposal WEBINAR: being our LBT Call out, we offer a short webinar to briefly present the telescope, its instruments, how we operate them and, mainly, go through the call to give guidance in writing your proposal. The online session will take place on MONDAY 17 Apr 2023 at 2:30 am CEST
MEET LINK: https://meet.google.com/ukt-wrqz-yzp
PDF: LBTITA_Webinar_CfP_2023.pdf


Posted on April 1, 2023
LBT Italian Call 2023-24 open!

Click here to more information.
Expires: Friday May 12th, 2023, 24:00 CEST

Posted on March 3, 2023
Quel breve Grb porta la firma d’una protomagnetar

La notte del 18 giugno del 2018 un lampo illuminò per qualche istante il cielo alle alte energie. Era un cosiddetto lampo di raggi gamma. Un Grb, dall’inglese gamma-ray burst. Per l’esattezza, un Grb corto, dove "corto" indica una durata tipicamente inferiore ai due secondi. Read more

Posted on October 20, 2022
New LBC ETC available

New version of the LBC Exposure Time Calculator available on the site.

The LBC Exposure Time Calculator performs Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Total Magnitude and Exposure Time calculations to help users plan LBC observing programs at LBT. It is built both on the LAMP software bundle for the server-side infrastructure and calculations and on HTML/CSS/Javascript for the client-side user interface. Full help and description of the software is available in the Help tab panel of the application.

Posted on June 8, 2022
Mezzo secondo: la vita breve d’uno strano Grb
Un gruppo internazionale a guida Inaf ha mostrato che il lampo gamma Grb 200826A – di durata inferiore a due secondi, tipica dei lampi corti – è associato all’esplosione di una stella massiccia, cosa che di solito accade con i lampi gamma lunghi. Lo studio è basato su dati raccolti con il Large Binocular Telescope, usando per la prima volta un sistema di ottiche adattive per osservare una supernova associata a un lampo gamma.
Read more on Media INAF

Posted on May 07, 2022
LBT Italian Call 2022-23 closed

Expired: Friday May 06th, 2022, 24:00 CEST

Posted on April 1, 2022
LBT Italian Call 2022-23 open!

Click here to more information.
Expires: Friday May 6th, 2022, 24:00 CEST

Posted on February 18, 2022
IASF-MI seminar on SIPGI by Adriana Gargiulo & Susanna Bisogni on Wednesday February 23th at 14:30.

Speaker: Adriana Gargiulo
Speaker: Susanna Bisogni

Title: SIPGI - a spectroscopic data reduction pipeline: a tutorial for LBT users

Google Meet Link

Posted on September 24, 2021
LBT Spectroscopic data reduction Pipeline released.
The LUCI&MODS spectroscopic reduction pipeline has been released by the IASF-Milano and is available here. For more info, please contact lbt-italia-spec@inaf.it or adriana.gargiulo@inaf.it

Posted on September 24, 2021
LBT Imaging data reduction Service active.
The imaging data reduction service for 2021-2022 is active. For more info, please contact lbt-italia-img@inaf.it or diego.paris@inaf.it

Posted on June 19, 2021
LBT Call for Adaptive Optics proposals 2021-22 closed.
Expired: Friday June 18th, 2021, 24:00 CEST

Posted on May 21, 2021
LBT Call for Adaptive Optics proposals 2021-22 open!
Click here for more information.
Expires: Friday June 18th, 2021, 24:00 CEST

Posted on May 20, 2021
LBT Italian Call 2021-22 Summary
46 proposals have been submitted, for a total exposure time of 1021 hours requested! The first table below shows the exposure time and the percentage of the total time requested for each instrument, the second table shows the exposure time requested and the number of proposals submitted by the INAF institutes and the last table shows how proposals are distributed in the RSN (Raggruppamenti Scientifici Nazionali).

Table 1.
Instrument Time (hr) Percentage
LBC 313.9 31%
MODS 293.1 29%
LUCI 243.4 24%
PEPSI 171.1 17%
1021.5


Table 2.
Institute Time (hr) Percentage # Proposals
OA-RM 233.0 23% 9
OAS-BO 156.1 15% 9
IASF-MI 112.0 11% 6
OA-MI 141.1 14% 4
OA-FI 127.5 12% 4
OA-PD 50.0 5% 3
OA-NA 49.0 5% 3
OA-TS 55.6 5% 2
Normale 12.0 1% 2
UNI-RM2 26.0 3% 1
UNI-PD 20.0 2% 1
ASI 31.4 3% 1
OA-CT 8.0 1% 1
1021.5 46


Table 3.
RSN # Proposals % Proposals Time (hr) % Time
RNS1 - Galassie e Cosmologia 20 43% 539 52.7%
RNS2 - Stelle, popolazioni stellari e mezzo interstellare 18 39% 302 29.6%
RNS3 - Sole e Sistema Solare 2 4% 42.5 4.2%
RNS4 - Astrofisica relativistica e particelle 6 13% 138 13.5%
RNS5 - Tecnologie avanzate e strumentazione 0 0% 0 0%
46 1021.5


Posted on May 15, 2021
LBT Italian Call 2021-22 closed.
Expired: Friday May 14th, 2021, 24:00 CEST

Posted on April 1, 2021
LBT Italian Call 2021-22 open!
Click here to more information.
Expires: Friday May 14th, 2021, 24:00 CEST

Posted on March 30, 2021
Bando per assegno di ricerca
Pubblicato bando per Assegno di ricerca dal titolo: "Tecniche osservative e progetti scientifici con grandi telescopi" sul sito INAF. Per saperne di più clicca qui

Posted on December 10, 2020
That young but already mature entirely self-made galaxy
So young and already so mature: thanks to observations obtained at the Large Binocular Telescope, an international team of researchers coordinated by Paolo Saracco of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF, Italy) was able to reconstruct the wild evolutionary history of an extremely massive galaxy that existed 12 billions years ago, when the Universe was only 1,8 billions years old, less than 13% of the present age. Read more here

Posted on September 23, 2020
Call for commissioning science SOUL-LUCI1
In order to exploit the new instrument niche and assess its scientific capabilities at this commissioning stage, the LBT astronomical community is asked to submit proposals for observation to be carried out.

Observational Period: Nov 1-6, 2020.
Deadline for Proposals: Oct 8, 2020

Read announcement here


Posted on September 7, 2020
The Pepsi Exoplanet Transit Survey Workshop
Mark the date! The Pepsi Exoplanet Transit Survey (PETS@LBT) Workshop is scheduled on Tuesday Sep 22 – 6am to 9am AZ time (13:00-16:00 UTC).

In this Workshop, a community proposal for a large LBT program will be discussed, to be submitted shortly thereafter. A high-resolution spectroscopic survey of exoplanet transits, secondary eclipses, and host-star characterizations of selected targets are proposed; dubbed the “PEPSI/LBT Exoplanet Transit Survey (PETS)”. Immediate goal is characterizing the planetary and stellar atmospheres in detail. During a 3-hr Zoom meeting the strengths and uniqueness of this proposal and recall shortcomings will be emphasized. The survey requests 40 nights in total or 12.5 nights per semester for two years in order to observe a representative number of targets starting in semester 2021A. More information here

Posted on July 26, 2020
LBT Pepsi Survey
We'd like to inform you of a scientific opportunity to use the PEPSI (Postdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument), the very high resolution spectrograph that is available as a facility instrument for all LBT partners. The PI of the Instrument, Klaus Strassmeier, is proposing a survey open to all partners named "PEPSI Deep Spectrum" aimed at collecting a seton of spectra of stars with exoplanet transits to characterise the planet and the stars. Klaus is offering 10 observing nights taken from his GTO time and data reduction with the team dedicated pipeline. The immediate goal of this initiative is to verify the scientific interest among the partners and prepare a proposal for evaluation. Here you can find his announcement with more details and, for those interested, the way to be engaged in the proposal preparation. PEPSI Survey Announcement

Posted on July 24, 2020
Updates about our operations at LBT during this pandemic period.
LBT status. The C19 outbreak is still having a big impact on the LBT operations. Even if the telescope reopened early in June, travel restrictions and mitigation procedures based on social distancing are heavily affecting both the observations and maintenance schedules. Being the daily access to the mountain restricted to a couple of people, regular support only is guaranteed. Extraordinary maintenance, that usually involves more people, had to be postponed. Observations under C19. Due to the safety protocols adopted at the AZ Campus, observations are mainly performed remotely by the LBT support astronomers from their homes. During the INAF runs they have been in close contact with our observing team that operate in eyedropping mode. This observing mode will be carried out in the next semester 2020B (sept20 - Jan21). INAF schedule in 2020B. Since we lost about 90% of the observing time in 2020A due to the lockdown and, given the ongoing uncertainties, we have decided to postpone the new call and continue observing the proposals already submitted last year. We will revisit the situation in the fall. The commissioning of the new AO system SOUL (PI. Enrico Pinna) is ongoing with very promising results and we plan to open a specific call for a science verification phase in winter. Discretionary Time (DT) is still available (see par. 1.4 of the last call). Users interested in these INAF-DT projects must contact LBT-ITALIA by email.

Posted on May 27, 2020
LBTO and COVID-19 Phase 2: Re-opening the observatory
On May 26, LBTO has started to get ready for a "C-19 observing mode" based on a desire to segregate the Graham County staff (where the mountain staff resides) and the Tucson-based staff as much as possible, in order to avoid making the observatory on Mt Graham a connection between the two communities. More info

Posted on April 24, 2020
COVID-19: Call for Proposals 2020-2021 postponed
Due to the Current LBT Observatory Lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the LBT Italian Call for Proposals 2020-2021 has been postponed until further notice. More info

Posted on March 19, 2020
COVID-19 - Shutdown of the telescope
In order to limit the number of social interactions and slow the rate of transmission, LBTO has shut down the telescope on top of Mount Graham. For more information visit the LBTO official website

Posted on March 6, 2020
Blazar da record sotto gli occhi di LBT
Pso J030947+27 è il blazar a oggi più distante mai osservato. La sua luce che riceviamo ora è stata emessa quando l’universo aveva meno di un miliardo di anni, ovvero circa il 7 per cento della sua età attuale, stimata in 13,8 miliardi di anni. Full Media