HARPS3 for a Roboticized Isaac Newton Telescope

TL;DR

HARPS3 is a high-resolution, roboticized spectrograph designed for the Isaac Newton Telescope to enable a decade-long radial velocity survey aimed at discovering Earth-like exoplanets.

Contribution

This paper introduces HARPS3, a new spectrograph with innovative design features and robotic operation, building upon previous HARPS instruments for exoplanet detection.

Findings

Design based on successful HARPS instruments

Implementation of a stable cryostat and improved CCD calibration

Robotic operation optimized for nightly star measurements

Abstract

We present a description of a new instrument development, HARPS3, planned to be installed on an upgraded and roboticized Isaac Newton Telescope by end-2018. HARPS3 will be a high resolution (R = 115,000) echelle spectrograph with a wavelength range from 380-690 nm. It is being built as part of the Terra Hunting Experiment - a future 10 year radial velocity measurement programme to discover Earth-like exoplanets. The instrument design is based on the successful HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6m ESO telescope and HARPS-N on the TNG telescope. The main changes to the design in HARPS3 will be: a customised fibre adapter at the Cassegrain focus providing a stabilised beam feed and on-sky fibre diameter ~ 1.4 arcsec, the implementation of a new continuous flow cryostat to keep the CCD temperature very stable, detailed characterisation of the HARPS3 CCD to map the effective pixel positions and thus provide an improved accuracy wavelength solution, an optimised integrated polarimeter and the instrument integrated into a robotic operation. The robotic operation will optimise our programme which requires our target stars to be measured on a nightly basis. We present an overview of the entire project, including a description of our anticipated robotic operation.