HARPS3
The HARPS3 instrument will be a fibre-fed, high resolution, high stability, echelle spectrograph. It is planned to be installed on the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope in La Palma in the Canary Islands. The design will be a close-copy of the very successful High Accuracy Radial-velocity Planet Searcher - HARPS and also the more recent HARPS-North. HARPS3, like its predecessors, will be high resolution (R = 115,000) and via two optical fibres will provide simultaneous measurement of the science source and a spectral calibration source allowing accurate RV measurements to be made. The wavelength range is 380-690 nm; the blue limit allows the measurement of the Calcium H and K lines which are one of the indicators used to monitor the stellar activity cycle. HARPS3 will also have an integrated polarimeter enabling spectro-polarimetry studies.
During the design and build phase of the project we also plan to upgrade the Isaac Newton Telecope (INT) to a robotic operation. The Terra Hunting Experiment requires nightly sampling of our targets and the optimised flexible scheduling enabled by a robotic operation allows this to be efficiently executed. This new mode of operation also opens up a new domain for other community programmes that have may have time sensitive studies or require time-series measurements which require a specific sampling rate and any other programme that would benefit from a flexible or non-traditional allocation of observing time.
These pages are under construction - please check back regularly for further information.
