Abstract
We describe the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), which is a
ground-based project searching for transiting exoplanets orbiting bright stars.
NGTS builds on the legacy of previous surveys, most notably WASP, and is
designed to achieve higher photometric precision and hence find smaller planets
than have previously been detected from the ground. It also operates in red
light, maximising sensitivity to late K and early M dwarf stars. The survey
specifications call for photometric precision of 0.1 per cent in red light over
an instantaneous field of view of 100 square degrees, enabling the detection of
Neptune-sized exoplanets around Sun-like stars and super-Earths around M
dwarfs. The survey is carried out with a purpose-built facility at Cerro
Paranal, Chile, which is the premier site of the European Southern Observatory
(ESO). An array of twelve 20cm f/2.8 telescopes fitted with back-illuminated
deep-depletion CCD cameras are used to survey fields intensively at
intermediate Galactic latitudes. The instrument is also ideally suited to
ground-based photometric follow-up of exoplanet candidates from space
telescopes such as TESS, Gaia and PLATO. We present observations that combine
precise autoguiding and the superb observing conditions at Paranal to provide
routine photometric precision of 0.1 per cent in 1 hour for stars with I-band
magnitudes brighter than 13. We describe the instrument and data analysis
methods as well as the status of the survey, which achieved first light in 2015
and began full survey operations in 2016. NGTS data will be made publicly
available through the ESO archive.
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