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David M Wilson

  WASP@Keele

    SuperWASP - Wide Angle Search for Planets

SuperWASP-South observatory (click to enlarge)

Keele Astrophysics Group is a member of the SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) consortium which is conducting the world's largest search for transiting extra-solar planets.
SuperWASP consists of two robotic observatories; SuperWASP-North is located on the island of La Palma in the Canaries and SuperWASP-South, which has been paid for and set-up by Keele, is located at the site of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), just outside Sutherland in South Africa.
 

SuperWASP-South is the second observatory in the SuperWASP family. Work started setting it up in August 2005 and full robotic operations began in the spring of 2006.
SuperWASP-South is a robotic observatory and so runs un-manned. At the beginning of each night it checks the weather conditions and if it is clear opens the roof and begins observations. One image is taken approximately once a minute for the duration of the night. In the morning the images, which can total upto 50,000 MB in size, are copied onto tape before being transferred to the UK for analysis.

To check on the live status of the observatory click here: Live Status

For images of the construction of the observatory see our photo gallery by clicking here or discover more about SuperWASP by visiting our main site www.superwasp.org.