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arXiv · 1611.00691

The Next Generation Transit Survey - Prototyping Phase

James McCormac·Don Pollacco·Peter Wheatley·Richard West·Simon Walker·Joao Bento·Ian Skillen·Francesca Faedi·Matt Burleigh·Sarah Casewell·Bruno Chazelas·Ludovic Genolet·Neale Gibson·Mike Goad·Katherine Lawrie·Robert Ryans·Ian Todd·Stephan Udry·Christopher Watson
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Abstract

We present the prototype telescope for the Next Generation Transit Survey, which was built in the UK in 2008/09 and tested on La Palma in the Canary Islands in 2010. The goals for the prototype system were severalfold: to determine the level of systematic noise in an NGTS-like system; demonstrate that we can perform photometry at the (sub) millimagnitude level on transit timescales across a wide field; show that it is possible to detect transiting super-Earth and Neptune-sized exoplanets and prove the technical feasibility of the proposed planet survey. We tested the system for around 100 nights and met each of the goals above. Several key areas for improvement were highlighted during the prototyping phase. They have been subsequently addressed in the final NGTS facility which was recently commissioned at ESO Cerro Paranal, Chile.

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James McCormac, Don Pollacco, Peter Wheatley, Richard West, Simon Walker, Joao Bento, Ian Skillen, Francesca Faedi, Matt Burleigh, Sarah Casewell, Bruno Chazelas, Ludovic Genolet, Neale Gibson, Mike Goad, Katherine Lawrie, Robert Ryans, Ian Todd, Stephan Udry, Christopher Watson. 2016-11-02. The Next Generation Transit Survey - Prototyping Phase. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873%2F129%2F972%2F025002

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