News

March 2025: New buildings are being constructed

Three new buildings are being constructed to host the already active LAST survey telescopes and the coming MAST array telescopes. They will be ready in a few months.

February 2025: Transients finding process

An example of supernova detection by LAST. Top-left: a reference image of the field. Top-right: a new image with the new source. Middle: the subtracted image (New minus Ref) - only the new source is on the field. Bottom: the field of view taken from catalogs of Pan-STARRS and SDSS.

January 2025: LAST observations of PHA 2024YR4

Serendipitous images of the potentially hazardous asteroid: 2024 YR4 were found in the LAST archive and reported to the MPC.

January 2025: 2 new mounts installed

LAST now contains 10 mounts with 40 operational telescopes.

  

November 2024: LAST scheduler is deployed

LAST scheduler is deployed, and LAST begins to work in a survey mode.

  

November 2024: DeepSpec spectrograph constructed

The under construction Multi-Aperture Spectroscopic Telescope (MAST) will have two spectrograph. The first spectrograpg DeepSpec is now constructed. DeepSpec is a low-resolution (R=500), high-throughput spectrograph.

October 2024: First SN discovered by LAST submitted to TNS

A preliminary version of the LAST transient detection pipeline was deployed. The first SN was found and reported to the TNS

  

September 2024: First MAST telescope installed in WIS

The first MAST telescope was installed in the Weizmann campus. The main purpose of this telescope is to test the system and develop the control software

Sep 2024 - The LAST enclosure was fixed

The LAST enclosure suffered from many reoccurring problems that prohibited remote operations. The roof was fixed, and it is now operational remotely.

Mar 2023 - 20 new LAST telescopes installed

20 new telescopes installed, and LAST now contains 32 operational telescopes

Jan 2023: LAST observed the Near Earth Asteroid 2023BU

On Jan 26-27, 2023, LAST observed the Near Earth Asteroid 2023BU that passed within 10,000 km from the Earth center. As part of the commissioning and pipeline tests, LAST observed the asteroid using several telescopes. More Sun light is reflected by the larger side of the astroid and therefore it looks brighter. The figure shows a small section of the asteroid light curve and we calculate the rotation period using the luminosity variations.

September 2022: LAST observes the DART mission impact

On September 26, 2022, LAST observed the impact of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft with the asteroid Dimorphos, minor-planet moon that circles around the asteroid Didymos. The animation combines hundreds of images from different LAST telescopes and shows how a dust cloud expands in the first hour after the collision.

March 2022: Enclosure construction and 12 LAST telescopes deployed

On March 3rd, 2022, the first 12 telescopes of LAST were deployed.