An upgrade to the mount of the ASTEP telescope
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
This research is about constructing a new mount for the ASTEP telescope, which located at one of the highest point, within Antarctica. This unique location provides long nights during the Austral winter. The current mount is failing and needs to be changed. Since access to Antarctica is difficult, a new mount needs to be designed and constructed now. Leveraging knowhow accumulated from 10 years of operations in Antarctica, this is the occasion to built a better mount. This will provide research outputs in three areas:
The first output will be a greater sensitivity to small planets, but also an improved precision on currently detectable exoplanets. The detection of planet is made via the transit method, when a planet passes between us and its host star, making it dimmer for a short moment that happens at every orbital period. Thanks to its long nights, ASTEP has specialised in the detection of rare planets: long orbital periods, transits that last longer than a night at a traditional site, systems with very infrequent transits etc... The good astronomical quality of the site, the lack of clouds and humidity (Antarctica is the driest place on Earth), and the long nights all contribute to make ASTEP a unique setup with unique scientific results. In more ways than one, ASTEP is like a small space telescope able to conduct uninterrupted observations for a few months.
The second output is to demonstrate the quality of the site at Dome C. Already known to be a very good astronomical location, the current instrumentation has not made full use of the unique observing conditions. A new mount, combined with a state of art camera about to be rolled out to the current telescope will improve our precision and accuracy by a factor 2 allow the detection of smaller planets and rivalling conditions at most other sites. This will ensure the base continues to manned and to extend operations to more challenging observations. For instance Antarctica is perfect location use near infra-red camera and attempt the detection of water within the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. It is possible to do this there thanks to the extremely dry environment.
The third output will be a series of technological developments to adapt direct drive technology to Antarctic conditions and demonstrate they can work reliably to produce accurate astronomical observations. As part of this goal, there will be a transfer of expertise from the Universite de la Cote d'Azur (Nice, France) to the University of Birmingham about how to control and tune direct drives. While this setup has shown to perform extremely well, tuning of a direct drive motor has proven difficult and is intellectual property retained by telescope manufacturers. With this knowledge in hand, Birmingham will be able to tune its own telescopes without requiring the expensive help of a telescope manufacturer.
The first output will be a greater sensitivity to small planets, but also an improved precision on currently detectable exoplanets. The detection of planet is made via the transit method, when a planet passes between us and its host star, making it dimmer for a short moment that happens at every orbital period. Thanks to its long nights, ASTEP has specialised in the detection of rare planets: long orbital periods, transits that last longer than a night at a traditional site, systems with very infrequent transits etc... The good astronomical quality of the site, the lack of clouds and humidity (Antarctica is the driest place on Earth), and the long nights all contribute to make ASTEP a unique setup with unique scientific results. In more ways than one, ASTEP is like a small space telescope able to conduct uninterrupted observations for a few months.
The second output is to demonstrate the quality of the site at Dome C. Already known to be a very good astronomical location, the current instrumentation has not made full use of the unique observing conditions. A new mount, combined with a state of art camera about to be rolled out to the current telescope will improve our precision and accuracy by a factor 2 allow the detection of smaller planets and rivalling conditions at most other sites. This will ensure the base continues to manned and to extend operations to more challenging observations. For instance Antarctica is perfect location use near infra-red camera and attempt the detection of water within the atmospheres of transiting exoplanets. It is possible to do this there thanks to the extremely dry environment.
The third output will be a series of technological developments to adapt direct drive technology to Antarctic conditions and demonstrate they can work reliably to produce accurate astronomical observations. As part of this goal, there will be a transfer of expertise from the Universite de la Cote d'Azur (Nice, France) to the University of Birmingham about how to control and tune direct drives. While this setup has shown to perform extremely well, tuning of a direct drive motor has proven difficult and is intellectual property retained by telescope manufacturers. With this knowledge in hand, Birmingham will be able to tune its own telescopes without requiring the expensive help of a telescope manufacturer.
| Description | ASTEP |
| Organisation | Nice Observatory |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We brought a state of art camera to the ASTEP collaboration, which has a telescope located in Antarctica. This will grant access to data from the telescope, starting in the Austral Winter of 2021. We will provide targets, and science cases for observations. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They constructed a telescope that can resist the harsh condition of the Antarctic, they operate the telescope during the Austral winter, and they are constructing a box to protect the camera from the harsh weather conditions. They will assist with data analysis, and data storage. |
| Impact | Too soon. |
| Start Year | 2019 |