August 6th, 2026: Positive funding news from the NSF! Our first Robo-AO-2 science program has been funded. Led by PI Mike Lu, we'll be using Robo-AO-2 to hunt for exoplanets and other substellar objects around thousands of nearby young stars. And, Robo-AO-2 will also be used to help integrate the adaptive secondary mirror on the UH2.2-m telescope with the SNIFS…
November 25th, 2025: Graduate student Suzanne Zhang successfully defends her Ph. D.: The Rising Tide Floats All Boats: Improving Overall Telescope Performance With Roboticized Adaptive Optics Systems and Adaptive Secondary Mirrors. https://youtu.be/UHhBXSZHL7k?si=hYqZts4p0aKWNDYc November 18th, 2025: Robo-AO-2's start of science observations and additional funding are featured in this University of Hawaii News Article. August 15th, 2025: Robo-AO-2 was awarded additional funding…
August 3rd, 2023: The summer flew by. Robo-AO-2 Akamai intern Kyla presented the results of her research at the Akamai Workforce Initiative, Internship Symposium at UH Hilo this morning. Excellent work Kyla! (also pictured: mentors James and Christoph with limited edition UHIfA lei c/o Kyla). July 21st, 2023: Robo-AO-2 PI Christoph Baranec presents at the TASC7/KASC14 workshop on how Robo-AO-2…
August 11th, 2022: Robo-AO-2 is at the UH2.2-m telescope on Maunakea. August 10th, 2022: The Robo-AO-2 instrument is now in its shipping crate - ready for a ride to the summit of Maunakea tomorrow! August 9th, 2022: Brian and Iven are building a custom shipping crate for the Robo-AO-2 instrument to ensure a smooth ride to the summit. August 9th,…
December 31st, 2021: The @BMCMirrors deformable mirror is now installed on the Robo-AO-2 carbon fiber bench. December 23rd, 2021: We're starting to assemble many of the Robo-AO-2 internal mechanical systems. Pictures are from yesterday and today in the lab. November 8th, 2021: The new tertiary mirror exchanger for the UH2.2m telescope is being assembled and tested at IfA Hilo today…
February 7th, 2020: Interested in a career in telescope/instrumentation project management? Join our team at the Hilo branch of the IfA. We're in the process of roboticizing the UH2.2-m telescope, building new AO systems and mirrors, and developing new detectors for NASA. January 16th, 2020: Our latest paper using data from Robo-AO at @KittPeakNatObs was just accepted. Led by former…
October 17th, 2018: We are also looking for a postdoc to act as project scientist for Robo-AO-2! Please see more details and apply at the link, forward to friends, or contact the team for more information. https://t.co/dB7Ot7ZiIi October 11th, 2018: The Robo-AO team is looking for a software specialist to help with Robo-AO and Robo-AO-2 in Hawaii. Please apply and/or…
June 26th, 2016: The Robo-AO team is at the SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation in Edinburgh, Scottland with 4 talks and 2 posters that used Robo-AO data or technology: C. Baranec The Rapid Transient Surveyor D. Atkinson Next-generation performance of SAPHIRA HgCdTe APDs C. Ziegler SRAO: optical design and the dual-knife-edge WFS N. Law SRAO: the southern robotic speckle +…
December 18th, 2014: Robo-AO was used to confirm the first discovered Kepler K2 exoplanet candidate by using high-resolution imaging of its host star to answer whether there are any very nearby stellar companions which may be contaminating the light curve measurements. Read more in the IfA press release and the journal paper led by CfA graduate student Andrew Vanderburg. November 13th, 2014: The Robo-AO team has been…
December 17th, 2012: Robo-AO has appeared in the latest issue of Caltech's Engineering and Science magazine. Read the article by Marcus Woo. November 15th, 2012: Robo-AO made an excellent showing at the 2012 Palomar Science Meeting with a science overview talk (Christoph), three posters (Reed, Shriharsh and Sergi) and description of how the system is verifying Kepler transit candidates during Prof. Johnson's public talk. Coincidentally, Nick presented the recently submitted…