The AGN Key Project Team of Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) just released our first team paper, describing the first reverberation mapping measurement ever done using 100% robotically-acquired data from ground-based telescopes. We used the LCOGT telescopes to obtain spectra and photometry of the active galaxy Arp 151 over a 200-day period from late 2014 through mid-2015, found strong variations in the nuclear luminosity, and used the data to measure the size of the broad-line emitting region and to derive constraints on the mass of the central black hole. There are only a few telesecopes in the world that are currently capable of doing fully robotic spectroscopic observations, and this is a great demonstration of the capabilities of the FLOYDS spectrographs on the LCOGT Faulkes Telescopes.

Our paper was accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, and a preprint is available at arXiv:1510.07329. Congratulations to Stefano Valenti, David Sand, Keith Horne, and the whole team!

Update: our paper is published now, and is highlighted on the AAS Nova web site.