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

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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

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...

Department of Physics, and the

South African Astronomical Observatory 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 funct ...

(SAAO).

KELT Telescopes

KELT consists of two telescopes, KELT-North in Arizona 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 by 26 degrees) medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k x 4k Apogee CCD. Each can also be equipped with an alternative narrower field (10.8 degrees by 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.

KELT-North

KELT-North is located at

Winer Observatory Winer Observatory is an astronomical observatory near Sonoita, Arizona in the United States. It is a private, non-profit observatory, operated by Mark Trueblood since 1983. It has been the site of a number of significant small telescopes and fa ...

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

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 brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's ...

of 8 < V < 10 magnitude. This is the regime 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 of KELT.

Exoplanet 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, companions at the planet–brown dwarf borderline have been called super-Jupiters, such as around the star Kappa Andromedae. By 2011 there were ...

instead) to date. Yellow indicates it's contained in a binary system. 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