[Previous] | [Session 21] | [Next]
W. T. Vestrand, K. Borozdin, D. Casperson, M. Galassi, K. McGowan, D. Starr, R. R. White, P. Wozniak, J. Wren (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
The RAPTOR (Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response) experiment is an ensemble of autonomous robotic telescopes that monitor the optical sky in real time for variations as fast as 30 seconds. To search for fast optical transients, the core of the system is a stereoscopic imager that is composed of a wide-field array that monitors 1500 square-degrees to a depth of 12th magnitude every 30 seconds, and a narrow-field array that monitors 16 square-degrees to a depth of 16th magnitude in 30 seconds. This stereoscopic system is supplemented by a single patrol array that simultaneously images 50 square-degrees of sky to a depth of 16th magnitude in 30 seconds. While it was originally designed to search the sky for fast optical transients, the wide field and fast cadence of the imaging make the system well suited for detecting the transits of hot Jupiter-type planets across their parent stars. We present the first results of our search for extra-solar planets with RAPTOR.
The RAPTOR project is supported at LANL by Internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development funding under DoE Contract W-7405-ENG-36.
[Previous] | [Session 21] | [Next]
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.