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 The 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).
Contents
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 by 26 degrees) medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k x 4k Apogee CCD. 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.
KELT-North
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 has been operating continuously since then, with occasional interruptions for equipment failures and poor weather.
KELT-South
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 brightness range of 8 < V < 10 magnitude. This is the regime 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 pre-defined fields around the sky all night, every night when the weather is good. All exposures are taken with 150-second exposures, optimized to observe stars in the target magnitude range of KELT.
Exoplanet discoveries
KELT has made several exoplanet discoveries and at least one brown dwarf to date.
In addition, the survey has discovered brown dwarfs like KELT-1b.