SkyCam is a project aimed at providing simultaneous wide-field observations in parallel with normal LT data taking. Three cameras offering different fields-of-view are currently being used: SkyCam-A is mounted on the side wall of the enclosure and gives a fish-eye view of almost the entire sky above the telescope, plus SkyCam-T and SkyCam-Z, both of which are mounted on the top ring of the telescope (shown right). SkyCam-T currently offers a 9 degree field-of-view (a different lens was in use prior to 22 October, 2014, which yielded a 21 deg field-of-view). SkyCam-Z is housed within an Orion AG8 telescope to give are finer resolution though smaller 1 deg field of view. At any given time, SkyCams T and Z therefore image whatever field is being observed by the primary science instruments on the back-end of the telescope.

All data taken with SkyCam-A and SkyCam-T are immediately public to all and may be used for any non-commercial scientific or educational purpose. Data taken with SkyCam-Z remain proprietary. Please contact the LT group if you require access to these data.

All three cameras are potentially very useful for monitoring observing conditions at the telescope. Indeed, every night instrumental zero-point measurements are obtained from each SkyCam-Z exposure. A plot of these ZP measurements can be used to track changes in transparency. When used alongside Movies created from all images obtained with each camera, LT users should be able to qualitatively establish how clear or cloudy a given night was. These ZP plots and Movies are available from our Night Reports archive.

The information given below represents only an overview of the SkyCam system. A more detailed description of SkyCam operations, software processing and photometric reliability may be found in STILT: System Design & Performance, Mawson, Steele and Smith, 2013, AN, in press (ArXiv e-prints, arXiv:1305.0573, http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.0573) which describes one particular photometric project based on SkyCam data.