The Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope a.k.a. Rocky Planet Finder,
is a fully
robotic 2.4-meter optical telescope at
Lick Observatory
The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by th ...
, situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California, USA.
[Steven S. Vogt et al., ]
APF - The Lick Observatory Automated Planet Finder
', 26 February 2014. It is designed to search for
extrasolar planets in the range of five to twenty times the mass of the
Earth. The instrument will examine about 10 stars per night. Over the span of a decade, the telescope is expected to study 1,000 nearby stars for planets. Its estimated cost was $10 million. The total cost-to-completion of the APF project was $12.37 million.
First light was originally scheduled for 2006, but delays in the construction of the major components of the telescope pushed this back to August 2013.
It was commissioned in August 2013.
The telescope uses high-precision
radial velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...
measurements to measure the gravitational reflex motion of nearby stars caused by the orbiting of planets. The design goal is to detect stellar motions as small as one meter per second, comparable to a slow walking speed. The main targets will be stars within about 100 light years of the Earth.
Early tests show that the performance of the
Ken and Gloria Levy Doppler Spectrometer
Ken or KEN may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Ken'' (album), a 2017 album by Canadian indie rock band Destroyer.
* ''Ken'' (film), 1964 Japanese film.
* ''Ken'' (magazine), a large-format political magazine.
* Ken Masters, a main character in t ...
is meeting the design goals. The spectrometer has high throughput and is meeting the design sensitivity of (1.0 m/s),
similar to the radial velocity precision of
HARPS and
HIRES.
Construction
Parts for the telescopes were constructed by international companies:
*The mirror blank was cast in Russia.
*The blank was optical figured in Maryland, USA.
*Assembly was performed in Arizona, USA.
*The dome was built in Australia.
*The
spectrograph
An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...
was designed and built in
California.
*It is located on
Mount Hamilton in California.
Collaboration with Breakthrough Listen
The telescope is also being used to search for optical signals coming from
laser transmissions from hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations (
search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
- SETI). This undertaking is performed for the heavily funded
Breakthrough Listen project of the
Berkeley SETI Research Center.
See also
*
*
List of astronomical observatories
References
External links
Automated Planet Finder Telescope - ucolick.orgAPF Camera view of Dome - ucolick.org
{{Portal bar, Michigan, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Science
Telescopes
Robotic telescopes
Lick Observatory
Exoplanet search projects