The Next Generation Transit Survey - Prototyping Phase

TL;DR

The paper describes the development and testing of a prototype telescope for the Next Generation Transit Survey, demonstrating its capability to detect small exoplanets and assessing systematic noise levels, leading to improvements in the final survey system.

Contribution

It introduces the prototype NGTS telescope, validates its performance for detecting small exoplanets, and identifies key improvements for the final survey instrument.

Findings

Achieved sub-millimagnitude photometry on transit timescales

Successfully detected transiting super-Earth and Neptune-sized exoplanets

Identified areas for technical improvements in the survey system

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.