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Conceptual Design Review for an ultra-stable Exoplanet-Hunter-Spectrograph

On June 25/26 2019, an international team of experts, chaired by Martin Roth, were invited to review the conceptual design for an ultra-stable high resolution spectrograph at the 10.4 m Telescope GTC at La Palma, Canary Islands. The meeting was hosted by the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias in La Laguna, Tenerife. For an estimated cost of 17 MEUR, a consortium of four partners is planning to build an ambitious, ultra-stable spectrograph for research on exoplanets, metal-poor stars, and other sciences cases. The consortium consists of NOAC, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NOAC), the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics & Technology (NIAOT), the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias(IAC), and GRANTECAN S.A., the company that is operating the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). The design of the spectrograph is proceeding quickly and involves exciting astrophotonics technologies such as optimized optical fibers and laser frequency combs.
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GTC-HRS consortium members and the review panel in La Laguna, Tenerife
Credit: GRANTECAN