The Exoplanet Tracker (ET) is a new concept of instrument for measuring stellar radial velocity variations. ET is based on a dispersed fixed-delay interferometer, a combination of Michelson interferometer and medium resolution (R~6700) spectrograph which overlays interferometer fringes on a long-slit stellar spectrum. By measuring shifts in the fringes rather than the Doppler shifts in the absorption lines themselves, we are able to make accurate stellar radial velocity measurements with a high throughput and low cost instrument. The single-order operation of the instrument can also in principle allow multi-object observations. We plan eventually to conduct deep large scale surveys for extra-solar planets using this technique. We present confirmation of the planetary companion to 51Peg from our first stellar observations at the Kitt Peak 2.1m telescope, showing results consistent with previous observations. We outline the fundamentals of the instrument, and summarize our current progress in terms of accuracy and throughput.

Date Published: 19 November 2003
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 5170, Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets, (19 November 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.506012

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5170:
Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets
Daniel R. Coulter, Editor(s)