Lick Observatory: APF - First robotic telescope for planet hunters

The Automated Planet Finder is the newest telescope at University of California's Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton. 

Credit: Laurie Hatch

Lick Observatory's newest telescope, the Automated Planet Finder (APF), has been operating robotically night after night on Mt. Hamilton since January, searching nearby stars for Earth-sized planets.

Every night the fully autonomous system checks the weather, decides which stars to observe, and moves the telescope from star to star throughout the night, collecting measurements that will reveal the presence of planets.

Its technical performance has been outstanding, making it not only the first robotic planet-finding facility but also one of the most sensitive.

The search for planets beyond our solar system (called "extrasolar planets" or "exoplanets") has yielded a huge number of discoveries in recent years, especially since NASA's Kepler spacecraft joined ground-based telescopes in the effort.

Unlike Kepler, however, which focused on distant stars in one small patch of sky, the APF focuses on nearby stars and covers the entire sky.

"The planetary systems we're finding are our nearest neighbours. Those are the ones that will matter to future generations," said Steve Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, who led the $12 million APF project and designed the Gloria and Kenneth Levy spectrometer at the heart of the system.

Vogt said it was a long and difficult road to get the APF facility completed, but now that it's up and running he couldn't be happier with its performance.

Matthew Radovan

Project manager and principal engineer Matthew Radovan of UC Observatories (UCO) oversaw a large team of UCO technical staff who provided crucial support for the construction and commissioning of the APF facility.

Sandra Faber, interim director of UC Observatories (UCO), said she was "absolutely thrilled" at the success of the APF.

"Our UCO staff worked incredibly hard during the past year to get the new facility on the air.

Sandra Faber

The APF is living proof that older observatory sites like Lick Observatory, which has been working for over 125 years, can still produce cutting-edge science," said Faber, a University professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz.

Vogt's team has submitted two papers describing new planetary systems recently discovered by the APF.

A paper on the APF itself, with a full description of the system and details on how well it is performing, will be published April 1 in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (available online at arXiv.org).