The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (or KELT) is an astronomical observation system formed by two

robotic telescope A robotic telescope is an astronomical telescope and detector system that makes observations without the intervention of a human. In astronomical disciplines, a telescope qualifies as robotic if it makes those observations without being operated ...

s that are conducting a survey for transiting

exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detec ...

around bright stars. The project is jointly administered by members of

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Department of Astronomy, the

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Department of Physics and Astronomy Astronomy Group, the

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Department of Physics, and the

South African Astronomical Observatory The South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) is the national centre for optical and infrared astronomy in South Africa. It was established in 1972. The observatory is run by the National Research Foundation of South Africa. The facility's f ...

(SAAO).

KELT Telescopes

KELT consists of two telescopes, KELT-North in

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in the United States, and KELT-South at the SAAO observing station near Sutherland, South Africa. Each KELT telescope consists of a wide field (26 degrees × 26 degrees) medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k × 4k Apogee CCD. Each can also be equipped with an alternative narrower field (10.8 degrees × 10.8 degrees) lens with a 7.1 cm aperture for a narrow angle campaign mode. KELT-North uses an Apogee AP16E camera, while KELT South uses an Apogee U16M. The optical assemblies and cameras are mounted on Paramount ME mounts manufactured by Software Bisque. The telescopes were made with off-the-shelf components, and were thus much cheaper than many observatories. *KELT-North is located at Winer Observatory in southeastern Arizona, about an hour's drive from Tucson. KELT-North was installed at Winer in 2005, and operated continuously until 2022, with occasional interruptions for equipment failures and poor weather. KELT-North was decommissioned in 2022. *KELT-South is located at the Sutherland astronomical observation station owned and operated by SAAO, about 370 kilometers (230 mi) North of Cape Town. KELT-South was deployed at Sutherland in 2009.

Goals

KELT is dedicated to discovering transiting exoplanets orbiting stars in the

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...

range of 8 < V < 10. This is the region just fainter than the set of stars comprehensively surveyed for planets by the radial-velocity surveys, but brighter than those typically observed by most transit surveys.

Operations

Both KELT telescopes operate by sequentially observing a series of predefined fields around the sky all night, every night when the weather is good. All recordings are made with 150-second exposures, optimized to observe stars in the target magnitude range.

Discoveries

KELT has made several exoplanet discoveries and at least one brown dwarf (which may be an extremely massive

Super-Jupiter A super-Jupiter is a gas giant exoplanet that is more massive than the planet Jupiter. For example, substellar companion, companions at the planet–brown dwarf borderline have been called super-Jupiters, such as around the star Kappa Andromedae. ...

instead) to date. Yellow rows in the table below indicate the planet is contained in a binary system.

Exoplanets

Brown dwarfs

In addition, the survey has discovered brown dwarfs like KELT-1b. #

References

External links

KELT-North survey website

KELT-South survey website
{{Exoplanet search projects Optical telescopes Exoplanet search projects by small telescope