Planet finding at Palomar Observatory
The Palomar Observatory is a world-class center engaged in the search for new worlds and many other areas of astronomical research. Located in north San Diego County, California, the observatory is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology.
The observatory is home to five telescopes, including the historic 200-inch Hale, which are nightly used for a wide variety of astronomical research programs.
Planet-finding projects at Palomar include:
Sleuth
Sleuth is a small, robotic telescope dedicated to the search for planets around other stars. Specifically, it is searching for signs of gas-giant planets passing directly in front of, or transiting, a star.
To do this Sleuth nightly monitors roughly 10,000 stars 6 degree square field-of-view, looking for transiting extrasolar gas-giant planets. This planet finder is the third instrument in a network that also contains STellar Astrophysics & Research on Exoplanets (STARE), located on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and the Planet Search Survey Telescope (PSST), located in northern Arizona. Candidates identified by Sleuth will be observed by an automated follow-up telescope (currently under construction in the same enclosure) to rule out most forms of false positives resulting from eclipsing binaries.
Single Telescope Extrasolar Planet Survey (STEPS)
STEPS is a project to detect extrasolar planets with a high-precision astrometry. The system uses a CCD detector that has been calibrated with unprecedented precision. A feasibility study for the project has been conducted using the Palomar 5 meter (16.5 foot) telescope.
Palomar Testbed Interferometer
Optical interferometry is an emerging technology in astronomy, and is considered an essential tool in the search for new worlds. The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) works by collecting light with the three small telescopes. The large distance between the small telescopes allows for much higher resolution measurements to be made. The light is directed through pipes to the central beam combining building where it is analyzed. The separation among the three telescopes is 110 meters (363 feet), making the PTI effectively the largest telescope on the mountain.
Find out more:
Palomar Observatory home page
Sleuth home page
Palomar Testbed Interferometer home page
