Date: 16/01/2015 22:39:38
From: CrazyNeutrino
ID: 662258
Subject: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) array, built by a UK, German and Swiss consortium, has achieved first light at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The installation is designed to search for exoplanets between two and eight times the size of Earth, studying them as they pass in front of their parent star.

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Date: 17/01/2015 02:22:21
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 662297
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

CrazyNeutrino said:


Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) array, built by a UK, German and Swiss consortium, has achieved first light at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The installation is designed to search for exoplanets between two and eight times the size of Earth, studying them as they pass in front of their parent star.

more…


“The NGTS is designed to operate robotically, monitoring the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars. Specifically, it’s designed to look for transiting exoplanets – those passing in front of a parent star and producing light fluctuations in the process.”

What’s the field of view?

The field of view of the Kepler space telescope was truly enormous. Kepler had a 115 deg^2 (about 12° diameter) field of view (FOV), roughly equivalent to the size of one’s fist held at arm’s length.

Found it. NGTS has a 3° field of view, so can observe no more than a sixteenth (ie. (3/12)^2) of the stars that Kepler could.

CoRoT has a field of view of 2.7° by 3.05°, roughly the same as NGTS.

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Date: 19/01/2015 19:55:55
From: CrazyNeutrino
ID: 663617
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

Why doesn’t NGTS have a bigger FOV than Kepler?

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Date: 19/01/2015 20:23:48
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 663625
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

CrazyNeutrino said:


Why doesn’t NGTS have a bigger FOV than Kepler?

I don’t know for sure, but getting a field of view as large as that of Kepler is very rare indeed in a telescope. A reflector telescope hasn’t a hope of getting anywhere near that. Any telescope that does has to be either a combination of reflector and refractor (technically known as catadioptric) or an array of refractors. The wider the field of view the greater the troubles of distortion (such as vignetting and coma) at the edges. Kepler uses a Schmidt telescope design combining reflector and refractor elements.

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Date: 19/01/2015 20:46:05
From: ChrispenEvan
ID: 663627
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

the FoV is 12 degrees width. the main reason you get a wide FoV is that there is no secondary mirror, the photometer takes its place. like all schmidt camera telescopes. the photometer array is curved.

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Date: 19/01/2015 20:55:07
From: CrazyNeutrino
ID: 663629
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

Kepler Discovers 1000th Exoplanet

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Date: 19/01/2015 21:43:44
From: mollwollfumble
ID: 663652
Subject: re: Exoplanet hunting NGTS telescope array achieves first light

CrazyNeutrino said:


Kepler Discovers 1000th Exoplanet

By way of contrast, Kepler’s smaller twin CoRoT discovered only 32 exoplanets. No planet candidate lists were published for CoRot and so far as I know the raw data has never been made public, unlike Kepler.

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