TEST - The Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope

TL;DR

The paper introduces TEST, a robotic telescope system designed for automated exoplanet and variable star searches, featuring a folded Schmidt Camera, integrated software, and automated data processing pipelines.

Contribution

It presents the design, automation, and data management system of TEST, a new robotic telescope optimized for exoplanet and variable star detection.

Findings

Automated photometry and lightcurve analysis enable efficient exoplanet detection.

Integration of software and database systems streamlines data handling.

The telescope's specifications support wide-field observations for variable star surveys.

Abstract

The Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope (TEST) is a robotic telescope system. The telescope uses a folded Schmidt Camera with a 300mm main mirror. The focal length is 940mm and it gives a 2.2 square degree field of view. Dome, mount, and CCD cameras are controlled by a software bundle made by Software Bisque. The automation of the telescope includes selection of the night observing program from a given framework, taking darks and skyflats, field identification, guiding, data taking, and archiving. For the search for transiting exoplanets and variable stars an automated psf photometry based on IRAF and a lightcurve analysis based on ESO-Midas are conducted. The images and the results are managed using a PostgreSQL database.