In 2000, PSI entered into a consortium with 4 other universities to take control of, refurbish, and operate the 50-inch (1.3m) telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Called the Robotically-Controlled Telescope (or RCT), this telescope had been closed down by the national observatories in 1995 due to budget constraints. Refurbishment for autonomous, remote observations began in 2000 through a contract with the Tucson-based company EOST.

Plans call for 40-50% of the time on this telescope to be devoted to searches for extra-solar planet transits. The first observations in the planet search are due in 2001 using a new CCD camera designed specifically for the project.

The use of a robotic telescope has significant advantages for the extra-solar planet search. We require many nights observing the same field of stars repeatedly. If these observations were conducted on a traditional telescope, they would require a telescope operator or one of the researchers to stay up all night. This greatly increases operating expenses and the number of personnel required to carry out the project.

Our observations with the RCT will be similar to those we have carried out on other telescopes. We will take a series of images towards a field of stars through a standard color. We may choose a variety of operating schedules, for instance cycling between exposures towards several nearby positions in succession (to observe more total stars) or observing a single position (to observe fewer total stars, but with a higher photometric precision for each). It is likely that we will want to initially survey as large of an area as possible to find one or a few promising transit candidates, then confine our observations to concentrate on the best candidate transit stars.

The RCT and its camera will have a field-of-view that is 10 arcminutes on each side. The telescope will be automatically guided using a star next to each survey field to keep the telescope pointing consistently from one exposure to the next. Each image will be stored on site before being transferred electronically to PSI or another consortium member's institution for the data reduction and analysis. The telescope will use a weather station to determine automatically when it is safe to open the dome. Instructions for the telescope's operations (where to point and the exposures and filters to use) will be sent via the internet by the observers. Optionally the telescope will be controlled remotely and interactively via the internet. The RCT will truly be unique in these capabilities and we are quite excited to start observing and finding planets!

For further information on the RCT project, and the other consortium members, visit the RCT Web Page.

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