HAT-South: A global network of southern hemisphere automated telescopes to detect transiting exoplanets

G. Bakos, C. Afonso, T. Henning, A. Jordan, M. Holman, R. W. Noyes, P. D. Sackett, D. Sasselov, Gábor Kovács, Z. Csubry, A. Pal

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    HAT-South is a network of six identical, fully automated wide field telescopes, to be located at three sites (Chile: Las Campanas, Australia: Siding Springs, and Namibia: HESS site) in the Southern hemisphere. The primary purpose of the network is to detect and characterize a large number of extra-solar planets transiting nearby bright stars, and to explore their diversity. Operation of HAT-South is a collaboration among the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and the Australian National University (ANU). The network is expected to be ready for initial science operations in 2009. The three sites will permit near round-the-clock monitoring of selected fields, and the continuous data-stream will greatly enhance recovery of transits. HAT-South will be sensitive to planetary transits down to R ∼ 14 across a 128 square-degrees combined field of view, thereby targeting a large number of dwarfs with feasible confirmation-mode follow-up. We anticipate a yearly detection rate of approximately 25 planets transiting bright stars.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)354-357
    Number of pages4
    JournalProceedings of the International Astronomical Union
    Volume4
    Issue numberS253
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 2008

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