Monday

The current generation of optical surveys have opened up a new era of transient astronomy, but at the same time have introduced a new problem: our discovery capability has dramatically outpaced our follow-up capacity, such that less than 10 per cent of new transients receive a spectroscopic classification, let alone any scientific exploitation. The rapid response and flexibility of robotic telescopes makes them ideal tools for this vital follow-up role. In this talk I will provide a status update for the Liverpool Telescope: a leading facility for transient astronomy. I will focus on new software and hardware capabilities which we have recently introduced, or plan to introduce in the near future, to enhance the capability of the telescope for this type of work. The follow-up gap is going to increase in size by orders of magnitude as we move into the LSST era. I will therefore also provide an update on the development of the Large Robotic Telescope: a new 4-metre class telescope designed to meet the challenges of the coming decades of transient astronomy. Building on the strengths of the LT, the LRT will be a fully robotic telescope with a lightweight, fast-slewing design, providing a world-leading rapid response capability for efficient programmes of classification spectroscopy and the follow-up of fast-fading sources.