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NGTS

The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a wide-field photometric survey designed to discover transiting exoplanets of Neptune-size and smaller around bright stars (magnitude V<13).

NGTS will employ an array of 12 fully-robotic sm all telescopes operating in the 600-900 nm band, thereby maximizing sensitivity to bright but relatively small host stars (K and early-M spectral type).

NGTS will be sited at ESO-Paranal, home of the ESO’s VLT telescopes, which meets strict requirements for low water vapor and excellent photometric conditions.

The rotating sky above ESO's very large Telescopes at Paranal Credit: ESO / Stephane Guisard

INSTRUMENTATION Number of telescopes in the array 12 Aperture of a single telescope 20 cm f/D f/2.8 Mounting equatorial fork CCD Array   Number of active pixels 2048 x 2048 pixels   Pixel size 13.5 µm x 13.5 µm   Image area 27.6 mm x 27.6 mm Wavelength range 600 nm – 900 nm (visible and near IR) Operation mode fully robotic

SCHEDULE    Summer 2012  on site installation  April 2013  start of first surveys

Telescopes at Paranal Credit: NGTS project / R. West Uni. Leicester

Telescopes at Paranal Credit: NGTS project /R. West Uni. Leicester

Links: www.ngtransits.org www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html Author: Ruth Titz-Weider, ruth.titz@dlr.de