Thunderbird South: UBC’s Southern Observatory

Thunderbird South is a half-meter telescope located near La Serena, Chile, remotely operated by UBC Astronomy students Andrea Schildhorn and Alex Kauffman. The telescope is predominantly used for deep-sky imaging, on-demand observing, and space domain awareness research.


Recent Observations

Live Telescope Status: Sleeping.

DateTarget ObjectsNoteStatus
2 April 2025TOI-564 bExoplanet TransitCancelled: Poor data πŸ™
16 May 2025TOI-3235bExoplanet TransitCancelled: Poor data πŸ™
9 July 2025NGC 6334 (Cat’s Paw Nebula)Astrophotography – NebulaeCancelled: Moon too bright.
15 Sep 2025NGC 7293 (Helix Nebula)Astrophotography – NebulaePost-processing done
17 Oct 2025N11B (Bean Nebula)Astrophotography – NebulaePost-processing in progress.
18 Oct 2025WASP-96bExoplanet TransitPre-processing in progress.

Projects

Read about our initiatives for exoplanet transit follow-up, space domain awareness, and Earth-space sustainability

Thunder Notes

An inside blog view of telescope operations, ranging from working processes of successful observations to technical mysteries such as β€œit was working fine yesterday.”