The Automated Planet Finder is a facility on Mount Hamilton with a high resolution optical echelle spectrometer. Currently, a fraction of time on the APF is available for the greater UC community.
The APF is the Automated Planet Finder. A 2.4m telescope that runs robotically.
The high resolution spectrometer has multiple options for slit apertures. To aid in planning, we have an exposure time calculator.
The APF is a high throughput system, with a peak system efficiency of around 14%. We use these real measurements in our exposure time calculator.
Each program for the APF requires an online form for storing the target information. These are represented by Google Sheets that are accesible by the scheduler during the start of each night. The sheet has information that controls the details of the observing such as exposure time, number of exposures, position on sky, spectrometer configuration and priority.
The APF Scheduler is controlled by a variety factors including weather, target availability, the moon, and the grades awarded by the TAC.
The automated software focuses the instrument and then acquires a set of standard calibrations. This can be customized, and we show the script used to generate the standard calibrations.
All APF data are stored in the Mount Hamilton Data Archive. This provides a rapid way of collecting your data and an independent long term storage for data.
Starting in 2020A, we have compiled summaries of the observing history of the APF.