UC Santa Cruz

The Automated Planet Finder (APF) is a 2.4m, f/15 telescope located at the UCO's Lick Observatory, atop Mt. Hamilton. The telescope has been specifically optimized to detect and characterize extrasolar planets via high precision, radial velocity (RV) observations using the high-resolution Levy echelle spectrograph. The telescope has demonstrated world-class internal precision levels of 1 m/s when observing bright, RV standard stars. Observing time on the telescope is divided such that ~80% is spent on exoplanet related research and the remaining ~20% is made available to the University of California consortium for other science goals. The telescope achieved first light in 2013, and this work describes the APF's early science achievements and its transition from a traditional observing approach to a fully autonomous facility.

First we provide a characteristic look at the APF telescope and the Levy spectrograph, focusing on the stability of the instrument and its performance on RV standard stars. Second, we describe the design and implementation of the dynamic scheduling software which has been running our team's nightly observations on the APF for the past year. Third, we discuss the detection of a Neptune-mass planet orbiting the nearby, low-mass star GL687 by the APF in collaboration with the HIRES instrument on Keck I. Fourth, we summarize the APF's detection of two multi-planet systems: the four planet system orbiting HD 141399 and the 6 planet system orbiting HD 219134. Fifth, we expand our science focus to assess the impact that the APF - with the addition of a new, time-varying prioritization scheme to the telescope's dynamic scheduling software - can have on filling out the exoplanet Mass-Radius diagram when pursuing RV follow-up of transiting planets detected by NASA's TESS satellite. Finally, we outline some likely next science goals for the telescope.