SuperWASP

The SuperWASP project is an automatic search for extrasolar planets. The European project stands for Super Wide Angle Search for Planets.

Location

SuperWASP consists of two autonomously operating observatories. You are in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma (28 ° 45 ' 37 " N, 17 ° 52' 45 " W28.76023 - 17.8793 ) and the South African Astronomical Observatory, South Africa ( 32 ° 22 ' 46 " S, 20 ° 48 ' 38 "E - 32.37944444444420.810555555556 ).

Technology

In a specially designed autonomous observation station are eight telephoto lenses ( Canon 200mm/f1.8 ) ready to perform about 50 million measurements of the brightnesses of stars in a clear night, a Hufeisenmontierung.

Each lens is associated with a CCD camera with astronomical 2048x2048 pixels area providing a field of view of 7.8 x7, 8 degrees.

Measurements

Every night, the cameras should make about 800 for 35 seconds each exposed images.

The magnitudes of the stars are to be determined 7 to 13 size with 1 percent accuracy (0.01 magnitudes ).

Results

From the temporal analysis of the measurements is hoped that more discoveries of exoplanets that pass in front of their sun and thus weaken their light. Meanwhile, the number of through the SuperWASP project newly discovered planet has risen to 31.

Discovered exoplanets

Similar projects

Currently, there are about 20 similar projects, such as OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment), STARE, PSST, HAS, TASS Sky Survey ( TASS )