Exoplanets and Stellar Physics

Abstract:

ASTEP (Antarctic Search for Transiting Exo Planets) is a research program funded mainly by French ANR grants and by the French Polar Institute (IPEV), dedicated to the photometric study of exoplanetary transits from Antarctica. The preliminary pathfinder instrument ASTEP-South is described in another communication (Crouzet et al., these proceedings), and we focus in this presentation on the main instrument of the ASTEP program: ASTEP-400, a 40 cm robotized and thermally-controlled photometric telescope operated from the French-Italian Concordia station (Dome C, Antarctica). ASTEP-400 has been installed at Concordia during the 2009-2010 summer campaign. Since, the telescope has been operated in nominal conditions during 2010 and 2011 winters, and the 2012 winterover is presently in progress. Data from the first two winter campaigns are available and processed. We give a description of the ASTEP-400 telescope from the mechanical, optical and thermal point of view. Control and software issues are also addressed. We end with a discussion of some astronomical results obtained with ASTEP-400. Copyright © 2013 International Astronomical Union.

Abstract:

The ASTEP program is dedicated to exo-planet transit search from the Concordia Station located at Dome C, Antarctica. It comprises two instruments: a fixed 10cm refractor pointed toward the celestial South Pole, and a 400mm Newton telescope with a 1×1 degree field of view. This work focuses on the latter instrument. It has been installed in November 2009, and has been observing since then during the two polar winters 2010 and 2011. After presenting the main science observing programs, we review the telescope installation, performance, and describe its operating conditions as well as the data reduction and handling strategy. The resulting lightcurves are generally very stable and of excellent quality, as shown by continuous observations of WASP-19 that we present here. © 2012 SPIE.