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 formattelephoto 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.
Star
Constellation
Right ascension
Declination
App. mag.
Distance
Spectral type
Planet
Mass
Radius
Density
Orbital period
Semimajor axis
Orbital eccentricity
Inclination
Discovery year
KELT-2A
Auriga
8.77
420
F7V
KELT-2Ab
1.486
1.306
4.11379
0.05498
0.0
88.5
2012
KELT-3
Leo
9.8
580
F6V
KELT-3b
1.418
1.333
0.75
2.70339
0.04117
0.0
84.32
2012
KELT-4A
Leo
9.98
685
F8V
KELT-4Ab
0.878
1.706
2.9895933
0.04321
0.0
83.11
2015
KELT-6
Coma Berenices
10.38
724
F9IV
KELT-6b
0.43
1.19
0.311
7.84563
0.079
0.22
88.81
2013
KELT-7
Auriga
8.54
420
F2V
KELT-7b
1.28
1.533
0.442
2.7347749
0.04415
0.0
83.76
2015
KELT-8
KELT-8b
2015
KELT-9
Cygnus
7.56
620
KELT-9b
2015
KELT-10
KELT-10b
2015
KELT-14
KELT-14b
2015
KELT-15
KELT-15b
2015
KELT-16
KELT-16b
2017
KELT-18
KELT-18b
2017
In addition, the survey has discovered brown dwarfs like KELT-1b.
