The Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg

Thüringer Landessternwarte TautenburgPersonnel

1 Director

7 Permanent Scientists

2 Postdoc Scientists (Chretian, EU RTN)

6 Ph.D. Students (DFG, DLR)

3 Diploma students

3 Telescope support (1 is optical designer)

3 Administration + house keepers, gardner, maintenance

2 Computer administrators/programers

2 Electronics2 Mechanical workshop

Wild pigs, deer, foxes, and ticks

Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg

TLS: An International Institute

Postdocs: Uzbekistan (Chretian Grant), Italy (EU RTN)

Ph.D. Students: Brasil, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Ukraine,Venezuela, …

Scientific Visitors: Canada, Egypt, Georgia, Italy, Ireland, USA, S. Korea, Ukraine, …

Research Activities of TLS

• Star formation, jets and outflows • Extrasolar planets and Brown Dwarfs• Magnetic activity on stars• Stellar oscillations• Gamma Ray Bursts• Quasars and active galaxies

=> Small institute, yet diverse

Instrumentation of the Alfred-Jensch 2m Telescope

Schmidt Camera:

• Objective Prism (R~50)

• 50 x 50 arcmin FOV (0.7´´ per pixel)

• 3.3o x 3.3o with photographic plates

• ca. 10000 plates since 1960• CCD Camera installed in 1996

Instrumentation of the Alfred-Jensch 2m Telescope

Naysmyth Faint Object Spectrograph:

• 3500-10000 A

• Installed in 2001

• SITe 1024x800 CCD (0.53´´/pixel)• 5 grisms (100 to 230 A/mm)

Instrumentation of the Alfred-Jensch 2m Telescope

Coude Echelle Spectrograph:

• iodine absorption cell for precise radial velocity measurements

• Installed in 1995

• R=67.000• grism crossed dispersed: 3400-9270 Ang.

Key Program: Radial Velocity Search for Extrasolar Planets

Tautenburg Observatory Planet Search Program

Thüringer Landessternwarte TautenburgArtie Hatzes Eike Guenther (young stars, brown dwarfs)Massimiliano Esposito (young stars) Michael Hartmann (metal rich stars, A-type stars)

The Team: Radial Velocity Searches

ESO

Michaela Döllinger (K giant planets and oscillations)

Collaborators:

Bill Cochran, Mike Endl, Barbara McArthur, Fritz Benedict (McDonald Observatory) – (M dwarf program with Endl)Martin Kürster (MPIA)David Mkrtichian (ARCSEC)Johny Setiawan (MPIA Heidelberg)

Iodine cell

HD 13189: The First Tautenburg Planet

Period 471 ± 6 d

RV Amplitude 173 ± 10 m/s

e 0.27 ± 0.06

a 1.8 AU

Msin i 13 MJupiter

The Planet

M = 3.5 Msun

[Fe/H] = –0.58

K2 II-III

The Star

Schuler et al. (2005)

Gem

CFHT McDonald 2.1m

McDonald 2.7m TLS

Sp.T. = F4 M* = 1.4 Solar Masses

m sin i = 13 MJupiter

Period = 328 d

a = 1.06 AU

e = 0.15

M* = 1.2 Solar Mass K giantm sin i = 6.6 MJupiter

Period = 266 d

a = 0.86 AU

e = 0.45

Döllinger Ph.D. work:

Orbiting star M5 VRadius [Rsun] 0.35

Mass [Msun] 0.22

TOPS Program: Transit Confirmation

Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg Jochen EislöffelHolger VossPhilipp EigmüllerRV Team for follow-up

The Team: Transit Searches

DLR (BEST collaboration)Heike RauerAnders Erikson

CoRoT German Team:Martin PätzoldLudmilla CaroneGünther Wuchterl+ DLR Team

The Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope

BEST @TLS TEST

FoV 3.1o × 3.1o 2.2o × 2.2o

Plate scale/pixel 5.5´´ 1.9´´

Magnitude for 1% photometry

13.5 – 14.0 14.8 (R filter 4m exp.)

CCD 20482, 14m 40962, 9m

Aperture 20 cm 30 cm

Type Schmidt Schmidt

Filters None BVRI (planned)

TEST first light Nov 2005…

…but problems with mount and guiding

BEST: 240 sec exposure

TEST: 30 sec exposure

13.7

13.4

1% photometry down to ~15 mag

TLS Contributions to NAHUAL

Person Power:

• Expertise in absorption cell

• Small workshop that is overstretched → small parts

• CAD work possible

• Limited Electronics/Computer support

• Science contributions

TLS Contributions to NAHUAL

Money:

• Best to spread costs over several budget years

• 80.000 – 100.000 in 2007 Budget

• 2008/2009 Budget will be prepared early next year

• Money has to be spent in a given budget year. Transfer to next year possible but difficult

• Specific items need to be identified and bids made

• Memorandum of Understanding important