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W. D. Cochran, D. B. Paulson, M. Endl (U. Texas), A. P. Hatzes (TLS Tautenburg)
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) and its High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS) are an ideal system to use for high precision radial velocity surveys for extrasolar planetary systems. The HRS is a fiber-fed instrument housed in a temperature controlled chamber in the basement of the HET building. It is equipped with an I2 absorption cell to serve as the velocity metric. The spectrograph is specifically designed to have extremely high radial velocity stability. The HET itself is operated in a queue scheduled manner, which is ideal for large surveys in which the temporal sampling of each object is critical. The HRS began regular scientific operations in June 2001. We present results from the first test data from the HET, demonstrating the results achievable with this instrument. This research was supported by NASA grant NAG5-9227 and by NSF grant AST-9808980.