The world’s first robotic laser adaptive optics system, developed by a team led by University of Hawaiʻi at M膩noa astronomer Christoph Baranec, will soon find a new home at the venerable at in Arizona. This system, renamed Robo-AO KP, will be the world’s first dedicated adaptive optics astronomical observatory and will allow astronomers to take an unprecedented number of highly detailed images of a wide range of celestial objects.

The prototype system has been operational on a part-time basis at the 1.5-meter (60-inch) telescope since 2011, and has been an indispensable tool for many areas of astronomy—it has confirmed thousands of exoplanet discoveries made by NASA’s Kepler mission and measured the rates at which different types of stars are born into single, double, triple and even quadruple star systems.

The Robo-AO team even recently discovered one of only two known quadruple star systems containing planets. Once the system becomes Robo-AO KP after its transfer to the Kitt Peak telescope later in 2015, the team will be able to take on much more ambitious projects.

• Related: March 5, 2015

Baranec led the development of Robo-AO when he worked at the (Caltech). Other core members of the Robo-AO team include Reed Riddle (Caltech), Nicholas Law (now at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Shri Kulkarni (Caltech). The same team, under the leadership of Kulkarni and Caltech, will be responsible for the overall deployment and operation of the Robo-AO KP system. Baranec is responsible for adapting Robo-AO to the new telescope optics and adding an additional infrared science camera based on new technologies being developed by fellow 糖心Vlog官方 astronomer Donald Hall.

“Not only will we now have the necessary observing time for adaptive optics surveys that were previously thought to be impractical, but we’ll also be augmenting our back-end cameras with new technology developed in Hawaiʻi,” said Baranec. “I’m also excited that students from Hawaiʻi are deeply involved in preparing Robo-AO for its move, deploying the new camera, and planning for several of the upcoming science surveys,” he added.

糖心Vlog官方’s 2.2-meter telescope getting upgraded Robo-AO system

In addition, Baranec is developing an upgraded Robo-AO system for the 糖心Vlog官方 2.2-meter (88-inch) telescope on Maunakea that will be even more powerful and will be equipped with additional instruments for studying nearby supernovae and cosmology in the local universe.

Robo-AO uses an ultraviolet laser to create an artificial guide star in the sky to measure the blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere. By measuring how the atmosphere affects this artificial star, a deformable mirror in the system can be commanded to remove its blurring effects. Because light from the laser and celestial objects pass through the same atmosphere, and both are reflected off of the deformable mirror, images of celestial objects are similarly de-blurred, leading to very sharp images limited only by the same laws of physics that limit the sharpness of space-based telescopes.

As its name implies, Robo-AO KP will operate autonomously, making it the most efficient adaptive optics system in use today. (There will still be a telescope operator to handle routine opening and closing of the dome and monitoring of the weather.) Its invisible ultraviolet laser guide star beam will not distract or affect airplane pilots, or produce radiation that is hazardous during momentary exposures. Additionally, two months of observing time each year will be available to the broad United States astronomical community, which thus far has had only limited access to Robo-AO.

—By Louise Good

Researchers wanting to know more about the influences of multiple stars on exoplanets have come up with a new case study—a planet in a four-star system.

The discovery was made at Palomar Observatory using two new adaptive optics technologies that compensate for the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere—the , developed under the leadership of Assistant Astronomer Christoph Baranec of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s , and the PALM-3000 extreme adaptive optics system, developed by a team at Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that also included Baranec.

The , brings the number of known stars in the 30 Ari system from three to four. This discovery suggests that planets in quadruple star systems might be less rare than once thought.

Quadruple star system

The newfound four-star planetary system, called 30 Ari, is located 136 light-years away in the constellation Aries. The system’s gaseous planet is enormous, with 10 times the mass of Jupiter, and orbits its primary star every 335 days.

The fourth star, whose distance from the planet is 23 times the sun-Earth distance, does not appear to have impacted the orbit of the planet. The exact reason for this is uncertain, so the team is planning further observations to better understand the orbit of the newly discovered star and its complicated family dynamics.

In recent years, dozens of planetary systems with two or three host stars have been found, including those that would have twin sunsets reminiscent of the ones on the fictional Star Wars planet Tatooine.

Lead author Lewis Roberts, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and his colleagues want to understand the effects that multiple stars can have on their developing youthful planets. Evidence suggests that stellar companions can influence the fate of planets by changing the planets’ orbits and even triggering some to grow more massive.

New, more powerful Robo-AO on the horizon

“The discovery of this exciting system is only possible when we quickly scan through large numbers of potential targets,” said Baranec. “At the moment, Robo-AO is the only instrument that can give us the necessary combination of resolution and efficiency. Once we discover something interesting with Robo-AO, we can follow up with the ‘Formula 1’ systems, like PALM-3000 or the SCExAO system at the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi, to obtain the absolute sharpest images possible.”

“Additionally, we’re planning to bring a new, more powerful Robo-AO system to the University of Hawaiʻi 2.2-m telescope to leverage the pristine skies of Maunakea, Hawaiʻi. We’ll use it for even larger surveys and follow-up observations of asteroids and supernovae discovered by ATLAS on Mauna Loa and Haleakala,” said Baranec.

For more, read the .

—By Louise Good

An international team, including Christoph Baranec of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa , is using the world’s first robotic laser adaptive optics system——to explore thousands of exoplanet systems (planets around other stars) at resolutions approaching those of the .

The results, which shed light on the formation of exotic exoplanet systems and confirm hundreds of exoplanets, have just been published in the . The design and operation of the unprecedented instrument has just been published in the .

Laser adaptive optics systems are used by terrestrial telescopes to remove the image-blurring effects of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, thereby capturing much sharper images than are otherwise possible from the ground. Baranec, Robo-AO’s principle investigator and lead author of the Astrophysical Journal Letter, led the development of the innovative Robo-AO system on the Palomar 1.5-meter telescope. It is the world’s first instrument that fully automates the complex and often inefficient operation of laser adaptive optics.

“We’re using Robo-AO’s extreme efficiency to survey in exquisite detail all of the candidate exoplanet host stars that have been discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission,” said Baranec. “While Kepler has an unrivaled ability to discover exoplanets that pass between us and their host star, it comes at the price of reduce image quality, and that’s where Robo-AO excels.”

In fact, analysis of the first part of the Robo-AO/Kepler exoplanet host survey is already yielding surprising results. “We’re finding that ‘hot Jupiters’— rare giant exoplanets in tight orbits— are almost three times more likely to be found in wide binary star systems than other exoplanets, shedding light on how these exotic objects formed,” said University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Nicholas Law, Robo-AO’s project scientist and lead author on the Astrophysical Journal paper. “Going further, Robo-AO’s unique capabilities have allowed us to discover even rarer objects: binary star systems where each star has a Kepler-detected planetary system of its own. These systems will be uniquely interesting for studies of how planets formed—and for science fiction about what life would be like with another planetary system right next door,” continued Law.

Indeed, the first Robo-AO survey, covering 715 Kepler candidate exoplanet hosts, is the single largest scientific adaptive optics survey ever. That record won’t stand for very long, as the Robo-AO team is extending the survey to image each and every of the 4,000 Kepler candidate exoplanet hosts, and is ready to observe exoplanet hosts from Kepler’s new K2 mission as they are discovered.

The key to Robo-AO’s success is its efficiency, allowing it to observe hundreds more targets per night than conventional adaptive optics systems. So far, the Robo-AO system has already been used to make over 13,000 observations. “The automation of laser adaptive optics has allowed us to tackle scientific questions that were unimaginable just a few years ago. We can now observe tens of thousands of objects at Hubble-Space-Telescope-like resolution in short periods of time,” Baranec said. “Now that the technology has been proven, we’re looking to bring it to the pristine skies of Maunakea, Hawaiʻi, where it will be even more powerful.”

Read the for more information and a list of team members.

—By Louise Good

More on Robo-AO

• Time-lapse video

Assistant Astronomer Christoph Baranec of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has been selected as one of 126 recipients of a .

Awarded annually since 1955, the two-year fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders.

In nominating Baranec for the award, Institute for Astronomy Director Güenther Hasinger said, “Dr. Baranec is a rising star in the field of astronomical instrumentation. Even at this early stage of his career he has amassed a record of outstanding contributions to the field of , which removes the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere for ground-based astronomical telescopes.”

Baranec’s most significant work has been the development of a replicable, cost effective, and fully automated adaptive optics system called , which enables modest-size (1- to 3-meter) telescopes to image objects 10 times more sharply than without the system. Installed on the Palomar 1.5-meter telescope in California, it enabled Baranec and his colleagues to confirm numerous exoplanet candidates found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. He plans to implement such a system on the 糖心Vlog官方 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea.

After majoring in astronomy at the , Baranec studied optical sciences at the and received a PhD in 2007. He spent six years as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech before joining the University of Hawaiʻi faculty in July 2013. Baranec works at the Institute for Astronomy Hilo office in the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo University Research Park.

For more, read the .

—By Louise Good