Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope


The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope is an astronomical observation system formed by two robotic telescopes that are conducting a survey for transiting exoplanets around bright stars. The project is jointly administered by members of The Ohio State University Department of Astronomy, the Vanderbilt University Department of Physics and Astronomy Astronomy Group, the Lehigh University Department of Physics, and the South African Astronomical Observatory.

KELT Telescopes

KELT consists of two telescopes, KELT-North in Arizona in the United States, and KELT-South at the SAAO observing station near Sutherland, South Africa.
Each KELT telescope consists of a wide field medium format telephoto lens with a 4.2 cm aperture, mounted in front of a 4k x 4k Apogee CCD. Each can also be equipped with an alternative narrower field lens with a 7.1 cm aperture for a narrow angle campaign mode. KELT-North uses an Apogee AP16E camera, while KELT South uses an Apogee U16M. The optical assemblies and cameras are mounted on Paramount ME mounts manufactured by Software Bisque.

KELT-North

KELT-North is located at Winer Observatory in southeastern Arizona, about an hour's drive from Tucson. KELT-North was installed at Winer in 2005, and has been operating continuously since then, with occasional interruptions for equipment failures and poor weather.

KELT-South

KELT-South is located at the Sutherland astronomical observation station owned and operated by SAAO, about 370 kilometers North of Cape Town. KELT-South was deployed at Sutherland in 2009.

Goals

KELT is dedicated to discovering transiting exoplanets orbiting stars in the apparent magnitude of 8 < V < 10 magnitude. This is the regime just fainter than the set of stars comprehensively surveyed for planets by the radial-velocity surveys, but brighter than those typically observed by most transit surveys.

Operations

Both KELT telescopes operate by sequentially observing a series of predefined fields around the sky all night, every night when the weather is good. All recordings are made with 150-second exposures, optimized to observe stars in the target magnitude range of KELT.

Exoplanet discoveries

KELT has made several exoplanet discoveries and at least one brown dwarf to date.
StarConstellationRight
ascension
DeclinationApp.
mag.
Distance Spectral
type
PlanetMass
Radius
Density
Orbital
period
Semimajor
axis
Orbital
eccentricity
Inclination
Discovery
year
KELT-2AAuriga8.77420F7VKELT-2Ab1.4861.3064.113790.054980.088.52012
KELT-3Leo9.8580F6VKELT-3b1.4181.3330.752.703390.041170.084.322012
KELT-4ALeo9.98685F8VKELT-4Ab0.8781.7062.98959330.043210.083.112015
KELT-6Coma Berenices10.38724F9IVKELT-6b0.431.190.3117.845630.0790.22 88.812013
KELT-7Auriga8.54420F2VKELT-7b1.281.5330.4422.73477490.044150.083.762015
KELT-8KELT-8b2015
KELT-9Cygnus7.56620KELT-9b2015
KELT-10KELT-10b2015
KELT-14KELT-14b2015
KELT-15KELT-15b2015
KELT-16KELT-16b2017
KELT-18KELT-18b2017

In addition, the survey has discovered brown dwarfs like KELT-1b.
StarConstellationRight
ascension
DeclinationApp.
mag.
Distance Spectral
type
PlanetMass
Radius
Density
Orbital
period
Semimajor
axis
Orbital
eccentricity
Inclination
Discovery
year
KELT-1Andromeda10.00854F5VKELT-1b27.231.1101.2175130.02470.087.802012