# Minerva-Australis I: Design, Commissioning, & First Photometric Results

## TL;DR

Minerva-Australis is a flexible, robotic telescope array in Australia designed for follow-up and characterization of TESS-discovered exoplanets, demonstrating high-precision photometry and supporting various exoplanet studies.

## Contribution

This paper introduces the design, instrumentation, and initial results of Minerva-Australis, a novel southern hemisphere facility for exoplanet follow-up and characterization.

## Key findings

- Successful demonstration of photometric capabilities using four known exoplanets.
- Flexible design allows for multiple observational modes and scientific applications.
- First results validate the system's suitability for TESS follow-up observations.

## Abstract

The Minerva-Australis telescope array is a facility dedicated to the follow-up, confirmation, characterisation, and mass measurement of bright transiting planets discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) -- a category in which it is almost unique in the southern hemisphere. It is located at the University of Southern Queensland's Mount Kent Observatory near Toowoomba, Australia. Its flexible design enables multiple 0.7m robotic telescopes to be used both in combination, and independently, for high-resolution spectroscopy and precision photometry of TESS transit planet candidates. Minerva-Australis also enables complementary studies of exoplanet spin-orbit alignments via Doppler observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, radial velocity searches for non-transiting planets, planet searches using transit timing variations, and ephemeris refinement for TESS planets. In this first paper, we describe the design, photometric instrumentation, software, and science goals of Minerva-Australis, and note key differences from its Northern hemisphere counterpart -- the Minerva array. We use recent transit observations of four planets--WASP-2b, WASP-44b, WASP-45b, and HD 189733b to demonstrate the photometric capabilities of Minerva-Australis.