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Welcome to the WASP@Leicester website
The UK Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) is a collaborative project
involving several UK universities. We have constructed
two SuperWASP telescopes (pictured right) capable of surveying the entire sky several times each night.
Our primary aim is the discovery of
extra-solar planets
using the
transit method.
We also aim to discover transient and moving
optical objects such as
gamma-ray bursts
and potentially-dangerous
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
The WASP data set will build into an invaluable resource for all-sky time-domain astrophysics.
The WASP Data Centre is hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at
the University of Leicester. The WASP
archive will eventually hold and serve more than 30TB of photometric
and 100TB of raw imaging data.
The Leicester WASP team includes Richard West, Mike Goad, Matt Burleigh and Olly Butters.
Please also visit the home page of the WASP Consortium.
WASP Latest News13th April 2010: WASP public archive launchedThe WASP Consortium has made public an initial release of photometric and raw imaging data from the first three observing seasons, covering 2004-2008. The archive web interface can be found at http://www.wasp.le.ac.uk/public/26th September 2006: WASP Consortium announces two new transiting exo-planetsAt a conference at Heidelberg today the WASP Consortium announced the discovery of its first exo-planets. The two planets, named WASP-1b and WASP-2b were detected in data acquired in the 2004 pilot survey, and confirmed by radial velocity measurements using the newly commissioned SOPHIE instrument on the 1.9m telescope at Observatoire De Haute Provence.
Press release
8th August 2006: First planet candidate list in pressThe first list of candidate detections of planet transits in the range 23hr < RA < 03hr has been accepted for publication in MNRAS. The preprint of the paper is available from astro-ph.23rd December 2005: WASP expansion nearing completionThe year 2005 has seen a major upgrade to WASP-North and the completion of the WASP-South telescope at SAAO. Both observatories now sport a complement of 8 cameras, giving each sky coverage just short of 500deg2 in a single exposure. Upgrades to the telescope control software have also yielded significant increases in observing efficiency. The Consortium are currently planning a new observing strategy to begin science operations early in the New Year.29th September 2004: WASP featured on BBC TVThe SuperWASP instrument is featured on the latest edition of the BBC TV astronomy programme The Sky at Night. The programme will be broadcast on BBC 1 on the night of Sunday Oct 3 at 1am, and will be repeated at noon on Saturday Oct 9 on BBC 2. An extended version of the programme will be broadcast on BBC 4 at 20:30 on Monday Oct 4.The Sky at Night homepage 16th April 2004: SuperWASP telescope begins operationsAstronomers at Leicester and from around the UK are today celebrating the opening of the SuperWASP facility on La Palma in the Canary Islands.BBC News Sky and Telescope Astronomy Now Leicester Mercury coverage University of Leicester Press Release PPARC Press Release Images and movies of inauguration ceremony SuperWASP images More news... |
