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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope

The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (or KELT) is an astronomical observation system formed by two robotic telescopes that are conducting a survey for transiting exoplanets around bright stars. The project is jointly administered by members of Ohio State University Department of Astronomy, the Vanderbilt University Department of Physics and Astronomy Astronomy Group, the Lehigh University Department of Physics, and the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO).

KELT Telescopes

KELT consists of two telescopes, KELT-North in Arizona in the United States, and KELT-South at the SAAO observing station near Sutherland, South Africa.

Each KELT telescope consists of a wide field (26 degrees × 26 degrees) medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k × 4k Apogee CCD. Each can also be equipped with an alternative narrower field (10.8 degrees × 10.8 degrees) lens with a 7.1 cm aperture for a narrow angle campaign mode. KELT-North uses an Apogee AP16E camera, while KELT South uses an Apogee U16M. The optical assemblies and cameras are mounted on Paramount ME mounts manufactured by Software Bisque. The telescopes were made with off-the-shelf components, and were thus much cheaper than many observatories.

  • KELT-North is located at Winer Observatory in southeastern Arizona, about an hour's drive from Tucson. KELT-North was installed at Winer in 2005, and operated continuously until 2022, with occasional interruptions for equipment failures and poor weather. KELT-North was decommissioned in 2022.
  • KELT-South is located at the Sutherland astronomical observation station owned and operated by SAAO, about 370 kilometers (230 mi) North of Cape Town. KELT-South was deployed at Sutherland in 2009.

Goals

KELT is dedicated to discovering transiting exoplanets orbiting stars in the apparent magnitude range of 8 < V < 10. This is the region just fainter than the set of stars comprehensively surveyed for planets by the radial-velocity surveys, but brighter than those typically observed by most transit surveys.

Operations

Both KELT telescopes operate by sequentially observing a series of predefined fields around the sky all night, every night when the weather is good. All recordings are made with 150-second exposures, optimized to observe stars in the target magnitude range.

Discoveries

KELT has made several exoplanet discoveries and at least one brown dwarf (which may be an extremely massive Super-Jupiter instead) to date. Yellow rows in the table below indicate the planet is contained in a binary system.

Exoplanets

Star Constellation Right
ascension
Declination App.
mag.
Distance (ly) Spectral
type
Planet Mass
(MJ)
Radius
(RJ)
Density
(g/cm)
Orbital
period

(d)
Semimajor
axis

(AU)
Orbital
eccentricity
Inclination
(°)
Discovery
year
KELT-2A Auriga 06 10 39 +30° 57′ 26″ 8.77 420 F7V KELT-2Ab 1.486 1.306 4.11379 0.05498 0.0 88.5 2012
KELT-3 Leo 09 54 34.0 +30° 38′ 24″ 9.8 580 F6V KELT-3b 1.418 1.333 0.75 2.70339 0.04117 0.0 84.32 2012
KELT-4A Leo 10 28 15.011 +25° 34′ 23.5″ 9.98 685 F8V KELT-4Ab 0.878 1.706 2.9895933 0.04321 0.0 83.11 2015
KELT-6 Coma Berenices 13 03 56 +30° 38′ 24″ 10.38 724 F8IV KELT-6b 0.43 1.19 0.311 7.84563 0.079 0.22
−0.10
88.81 2013
KELT-6c 3.71 1.16 1,276 2.39 0.21 2015
KELT-7 Auriga 05 13 11 +33° 19′ 05″ 8.54 420 F2V KELT-7b 1.28 1.533 0.442 2.7347749 0.04415 0.0 83.76 2015
KELT-8 Hercules 18 53 13.31 24° 07′ 38.09″ 10.85 664 G2V KELT-8b 0.66 1.62 0.165 3.24 0.04550 0.04±0.05 82.65±0.90 2015
KELT-9 Cygnus 20 31 27 +39° 56′ 20″ 7.56 620 B9.5V KELT-9b 2015
KELT-10 Telescopium 18 58 11.61 −47° 00′ 11.91″ 10.62 614 G0V KELT-10b 0.68 1.4 0.308 4.17 0.05250 0? 88.61 2015
KELT-11 Sextans 10 46 49.66 −09° 23′ 57.71″ 8.04 323 G8/K0IV KELT-11b 0.171 1.35 0.009 4.74 0.06±0.005 0.0007±0.0015 85.3±0.2 2017
KELT-12 Hercules 17 50 33.72 +36° 34′ 12.63″ 10.59 1200 F7III-IV KELT-12b 0.95 1.78 0.209 5.03 0.06708 0.0 84.47±0.15 2017
KELT-13/WASP-167 Centaurus 13 04 10.51 −35° 32′ 58.31″ 10.571 1381 F1V KELT-13/WASP-167b <8 1.58 2.02 0.0365 79.9 2017
KELT-14/WASP-122 Puppis 7 13 12.34 −42° 24′ 35.14″ 11 816 G2V KELT-14/WASP-122b 1.284 1.743 0.322 1.71 0.03 0.0 78.3 2016
KELT-15 Carina 07 49 39.59 −52° 07′ 13.57″ 11.39 1,068 G0V KELT-15Ab 0.91 1.443 0.36 3.33 0.04 0 88.3 2015
KELT-16 Cygnus 20 57 04.44 +31° 39′ 39.63″ 11.72 1,469 F7V KELT-16Ab 2.75 1.415 1.20 ± 0.18 0.97 0.02 0 84.4 2017
KELT-17 Cancer 8 22 28.20 +13° 44′ 07.14″ 9.23 743 A7V KELT-17b 1.32 1.525 0.46 3.08 0.05 84.87 2016
KELT-18 Ursa Major 14 26 05.76 +59° 26′ 39.29″ 10.16 1,057 F4V KELT-18Ab 1.18 1.57 0.377 2.87 0.04 0 82.90 2017
KELT-19 Canis Minor 07 26 02.29 +07° 36′ 56.18″ 9.86 987 A8V KELT-19Ab <4.07 1.91 <0.744 4.61 0.064 85.14 2017
KELT-20 Cygnus 19 38 38.74 +31° 31′ 09.22″ 7.58 446 A2V KELT-20b <3.382 1.741 <0.806 3.474 0.05 0? 86.12 2017
KELT-21 Cygnus 20 19 12.00 +32° 34′ 51.76″ 10.48 1,556 A6V KELT-21b <3.91 1.586 <1.24 3.612 0.05 0 86.46 2018
KELT-22/WASP-173 Sculptor 23 36 40.38 −34° 36′ 42.68″ 11.3 766 G3V KELT-22/WASP-173Ab 3.47 1.285 2.02 1.386 0.02 0 85.2 2018
KELT-23 Ursa Minor 15 28 35.19 +66° 21′ 31.54″ 10.31 413 G1V KELT-23b 0.94 1.32 0.503 2.26 0.03 0 85.37 2019
KELT-24 Ursa Major 10 47 38.35 +71° 39′ 21.16″ 8.33 316 F5.5V KELT-24b 5.18 1.27 3.13 5.55 0.07 0.08 89.17 2019
KELT-25 Canis Major 07 12 29.55 −24° 57′ 12.82″ 9.63 1,443 A4V
KELT-26/WASP-178 Lupus 15 09 04.89 −42° 42′ 17.79″ 9.95 1,410 A1V KELT-26/WASP-178b 1.41 1.94 0.238 3.35 0.06 0 84.45 2019

Brown dwarfs

In addition, the survey has discovered brown dwarfs like KELT-1b.

Star Constellation Right
ascension
Declination App.
mag.
Distance (ly) Spectral
type
Planet Mass
(MJ)
Radius
(RJ)
Density
(g/cm)
Orbital
period

(d)
Semimajor
axis

(AU)
Orbital
eccentricity
Inclination
(°)
Discovery
year
KELT-1 Andromeda 00 01 26.92 +39° 23′ 01.7″ 10.00 854 F5V KELT-1b 27.23 1.110 1.217513 0.0247 0.0 87.80

References

  1. ^ "The Ohio State University Department of Astronomy".
  2. ^ "Vanderbilt Department of Physics and Astronomy". Archived from the original on 2012-06-16. Retrieved 2012-06-12.
  3. ^ "Vanderbilt Astronomy Group".
  4. ^ "The Lehigh Department of Physics".
  5. ^ "South African Astronomical Observatory".
  6. ^ Pepper, Joshua; et al. (2007). "The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT): A Small Robotic Telescope for Large-Area Synoptic Surveys". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 119 (858): 923–935. arXiv:0704.0460. Bibcode:2007PASP..119..923P. doi:10.1086/521836. S2CID 13967723.
  7. ^ Pepper; et al. (2012). "The KELT-South Telescope". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 124 (913): 230–241. arXiv:1202.1826. Bibcode:2012PASP..124..230P. doi:10.1086/665044. S2CID 119207060.
  8. ^ "Paramount ME". Archived from the original on 2012-07-02.
  9. ^ "Software Bisque company page".
  10. ^ Sample, Ian (2017-06-05). "Kelt-9b: astronomers discover hottest known giant planet". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  11. ^ Oberst, Thomas E.; Rodriguez, Joseph E.; Colón, Knicole D.; Angerhausen, Daniel; Bieryla, Allyson; Ngo, Henry; Stevens, Daniel J.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Gaudi, B. Scott; Pepper, Joshua; Penev, Kaloyan; Mawet, Dimitri; Latham, David W.; Heintz, Tyler M.; Osei, Baffour W.; Collins, Karen A.; Kielkopf, John F.; Visgaitis, Tiffany; Reed, Phillip A.; Escamilla, Alejandra; Yazdi, Sormeh; McLeod, Kim K.; Lunsford, Leanne T.; Spencer, Michelle; Joner, Michael D.; Gregorio, Joao; Gaillard, Clement; Matt, Kyle; Dumont, Mary Thea; et al. (2017). "KELT-16b: A Highly Irradiated, Ultra-short Period Hot Jupiter Nearing Tidal Disruption". The Astronomical Journal. 153 (3): 97. arXiv:1608.00618. Bibcode:2017AJ....153...97O. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/153/3/97. S2CID 42949556.
  12. ^ McLeod, Kim K.; Rodriguez, Joseph E.; Oelkers, Ryan J.; Collins, Karen A.; Bieryla, Allyson; Fulton, Benjamin J.; Stassun, Keivan G.; Gaudi, B. Scott; Penev, Kaloyan; Stevens, Daniel J.; Colón, Knicole D.; Pepper, Joshua; Narita, Norio; Tsuguru, Ryu; Fukui, Akihiko; Reed, Phillip A.; Tirrell, Bethany; Visgaitis, Tiffany; Kielkopf, John F.; Cohen, David H.; Jensen, Eric L. N.; Gregorio, Joao; Baştürk, Özgür; Oberst, Thomas E.; Melton, Casey; Kempton, Eliza M.-R.; Baldrige, Andrew; Zhao, Y. Sunny; Zambelli, Roberto; et al. (2017). "KELT-18b: Puffy Planet, Hot Host, Probably Perturbed". The Astronomical Journal. 153 (6): 263. arXiv:1702.01657. Bibcode:2017AJ....153..263M. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aa6d5d. S2CID 54667386.