APACHE Project: A PAthway toward the Characterization of Habitable Earths.

With kick-off in Spring 2011, a long-term automated photometric survey of thousands of dwarf M-stars in the solar neighbourhood will start at the Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley, in the North-West of the Italian Alps at the border with France and Switzerland. The research project is developed and carried on in collaboration with the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Turin (Damasso et al. 2010, PASP, 122, 895, 1077). The survey will use an array of five dedicated and identical Carbon Truss 40-cm f/8.4 Officina Stellare Ritchey-Chrétien telescopes equipped with a FLI Proline PL1001E CCD Camera and Johnson-Cousins R & I filters. The main aim of the APACHE Project is the detection and first characterization of exoplanet transits. The survey will be planned in order to maximize the chances to find potentially habitable terrestrial planets, designing an Europe-based observational program similar to the US MEarth Project which has already discovered the super-Earth GJ 1214b (Charbonneau et al. 2009, Nature, 462, 891).

Hhere we go!

We’re starting with installation of first telescope for APACHE Project!

OObservatoire Astronomique De la Region Autonome Vallee D’ Aoste

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Officina-Stellare/290742575321

The first Officina Stellare Ritchey- Chretien installed for the Project on December 2010

8

00.80 mt. Ritchey Chretien open dome : photometric night searching new Exoplanets !

Gino ‘s working for final balance : ready for First Light!

Bbig FLI CCD camera on first focus of Officina Stellare Ritchey Chretien

me in early morning, after a cold observation night!