New results from the first exoplanet survey in the Canadian High Arctic

From National Research Council Canada

DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2057009
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Name affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. National Science Infrastructure
FormatText, Article
Proceedings titleGround-Based and Airborne Telescopes V
Series titleProceedings of SPIE; no. 9145
ConferenceGround-Based and Airborne Telescopes V, June 22-27, 2014
ISSN0277-786X
1996-756X
ISBN9780819496133
Article number91450H
SubjectAirborne telescopes; Cameras; Extrasolar planets; Photometry; Stars; Turbulent flow; arctic; circumpolar; Exoplanet; Site-testing; transit; Wide field cameras
Abstract
We present new results from the first search for transiting exoplanets undertaken from the High Arctic: the AWCam (Arctic Wide-field Cameras) survey. The survey, which has been operating for 2.5 years, is based at 80 degrees North on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. The small telescopes monitor 70,000 bright stars in a several-hundred square-degree region around Polaris, with milli-magnitude photometric precision, and are capable of discovering giant planets around 10,000 bright, nearby solar-type stars. We present the first longterm monitoring results from the AWCams, including an assessment of the site characteristics and the systems' long-term performance. The High-Arctic site provided excellent survey efficiency, without diurnal windowing and largely uninterrupted by clouds. Useful data was obtained over the entire survey field 71% of the time; the sky was clear 62% of the time. One pristine clear, dark period in winter 2012/13 persisted for 480 hours. In 2012/13 we recorded a period of 480 hours of continuous photometric conditions, attaining 3-4 millimag photometric stability over the entire period. We report the long-term photometric performance of the AWCam systems and detail the discovery of a bright (V=8) low-amplitude eclipsing binary. Finally, we present a concept for an extremely-wide-field arctic survey based on the Evryscope telescope-array design.
Publication date
PublisherSPIE
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NPARC number21275515
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