About the Faulkes Telescopes

The Faulkes Telescopes are 2-metre, professional-class telescopes located at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, and the Hawaiian Island of Maui in the United States of America. They were constructed expressly for the purpose of astronomy education and outreach by U.K. philanthropist Martin (Dill) Faulkes, and funded through his charitable organisation: the Faulkes Foundation. The telescopes are designed to be operated remotely by students in the UK, Hawaii and Australia with the aim of encouraging a new generation of young people to take an interest in science and technology.

The Faulkes Telescopes are equipped with state-of-the-art imaging CCD cameras identical to the ones used by front-line research astronomers for obtaining spectacular multi-colour images of celestial objects. They are also being equipped with spectrographs to enable light from objects to be turned into a spectrum. These capabilities offer schools the unprecedented opportunity to not only use the telescopes as a valuable teaching resource, but also to carry out ground-breaking research on their own or in collaboration with research astronomers.

The two Faulkes Telescopes have now been incorporated into the even grander scheme of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT). Established by Wayne Rosing (the ex-vice president of engineering at Google), this project will see more than 30 additional telescopes (ranging in size from 40cm to 1m) constructed around the world and made available to schools from all countries for educational purposes.