Astrophysics (Index)About

Automated Planet Finder

(APF, RPF, Rocky Planet Finder)
(robotic telescope to find exoplanets using RV method)

The Automated Planet Finder (APF) is a robotic 2.4-meter telescope at Lick Observatory, designed and built to search for extra-solar planets using the radial velocity method, which went into service in 2014. It can examine about 10 stars per night with an HRS spectrometer (named the Levy Spectrometer) capable of detecting an RV delta of 1 meter per second. It aims to survey stars within 100 ly. Among its discoveries is an apparent super-Earth orbiting Barnard's Star, announced in November 2018. An earlier name was the Rocky Planet Finder (RPF), given the aim of finding rocky planets.


(telescope,automated,exoplanets,California,RV method,ground)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Planet_Finder
https://www.ucolick.org/public/telescopes/apf.html
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PASP..126..359V/abstract
http://exoplanets.org/rpf.html

Referenced by pages:
Lick Observatory
TESS-Keck Survey (TKS)

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