ABSTRACT. The CHIRON optical high-resolution echelle spectrometer was commissioned at the 1.5 m telescope at CTIO in 2011. The instrument was designed for high throughput and stability, with the goal of monitoring radial velocities of bright stars with high precision and high cadence for the discovery of low-mass exoplanets. Spectral resolution of R ¼ 79 000 is attained when using a slicer with a total (including telescope and detector) efficiency of 6% or higher, while a resolution of R ¼ 136 000 is available for bright stars. A fixed spectral range of 415-880 nm is covered. The echelle grating is housed in a vacuum enclosure and the instrument temperature is stabilized to AE0:2°. Stable illumination is provided by an octagonal multimode fiber with excellent light-scrambling properties. An iodine cell is used for wavelength calibration. We describe the main optics, fiber feed, detector, exposure-meter, and other aspects of the instrument, as well as the observing procedure and data reduction.

The Lick planet search program began in 1987 when the first spectrum of τ Ceti was taken with an iodine cell and the Hamilton Spectrograph. Upgrades to the instrument improved the Doppler precision from about 10 m s −1 in 1992 to about 3 m s −1 in 1995. The project detected dozens of exoplanets with orbital periods ranging from a few days to several years. The Lick survey identified the first planet in an eccentric orbit (70 Virginis) and the first multi-planet system around a normal main sequence star (Upsilon Andromedae). These discoveries advanced our understanding of planet formation and orbital migration. Data from this project helped to quantify a correlation between host star metallicity and the occurrence rate of gas giant planets. The program also served as a test bed for innovation with testing of a tip-tilt system at the coudé focus and fiber scrambler designs to stabilize illumination of the spectrometer optics. The Lick planet search with the Hamilton spectrograph effectively ended when a heater malfunction compromised the integrity of the iodine cell. Here, we present more than 14,000 velocities for 386 stars that were surveyed between 1987 and 2011.

We have used double clamped beams to implement a mechanical memory. Compressive stress is generated by resistive heating of the beams and beyond the buckling limit the bistable regime is accessed. Bits are written by applying lateral electrostatic forces. The state of the beam is read out by measuring the capacitance between beam and electrodes. Two ways to implement a mechanical memory are discussed: compensation of initial beam imperfections and snap through of the postbuckled beam. Although significant relaxation effects are observed, both methods prove reliable over thousands of write cycles.

This paper describes the design, operations, and performance of the Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA (MASCARA). Its primary goal is to find new exoplanets transiting bright stars, 4 < m V < 8, by monitoring the full sky. MASCARA consists of one northern station on La Palma, Canary Islands (fully operational since February 2015), one southern station at La Silla Observatory, Chile (operational from early 2017), and a data centre at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. Both MASCARA stations are equipped with five interline CCD cameras using wide field lenses (24 mm focal length) with fixed pointings, which together provide coverage down to airmass 3 of the local sky. The interline CCD cameras allow for back-to-back exposures, taken at fixed sidereal times with exposure times of 6.4 sidereal seconds. The exposures are short enough that the motion of stars across the CCD does not exceed one pixel during an integration. Astrometry and photometry are performed on-site, after which the resulting light curves are transferred to Leiden for further analysis. The final MASCARA archive will contain light curves for ∼70 000 stars down to m V = 8.4, with a precision of 1.5% per 5 minutes at m V = 8.

In this paper we present MASCARA-2 b, a hot Jupiter transiting the mV = 7.6 A2 star HD 185603. Since early 2015, MASCARA has taken more than 1.6 million flux measurements of the star, corresponding to a total of almost 3000 h of observations, revealing a periodic dimming in the flux with a depth of 1.3%. Photometric follow-up observations were performed with the NITES and IAC80 telescopes and spectroscopic measurements were obtained with the Hertzsprung SONG telescope. We find MASCARA-2 b orbits HD 185603 with a period of 3.4741119-0.000006+0.000005 days at a distance of 0.057 ± 0.006 au, has a radius of 1.83 ± 0.07 RJ and place a 99% upper limit on the mass of <17 MJ. HD 185603 is a rapidly rotating early-type star with an effective temperature of 8980-130+90 K and a mass and radius of 1.89-0.05+0.06 M⊙, 1.60 ± 0.06 R⊙, respectively. Contrary to most other hot Jupiters transiting early-type stars, the projected planet orbital axis and stellar spin axis are found to be aligned with λ = 0.6 ± 4°. The brightness of the host star and the high equilibrium temperature, 2260 ± 50 K, of MASCARA-2 b make it a suitable target for atmospheric studies from the ground and space. Of particular interest is the detection of TiO, which has recently been detected in the similarly hot planets WASP-33 b and WASP-19 b.