Stellar Astrophysics on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope

Abstract

We briefly describe the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) and its present status and give several examples of successful stellar astrophysics programs. The HET was primarily driven by a science mission of conducting spectroscopic surveys. In addition the HET's unique design derives from considering that telescopes are largely used for exposure times of an hour or less at moderate zenith distances and modest image quality that is based on median site seeing which is consistent with a survey mission. We present results from planet searches, large radial velocity surveys, and Sloan Digital Sky Survey follow up programs in this context. The queue-scheduled nature of the HET makes it especially effective at synoptic programs that require a large aperture.1 Based on observations obtained with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is a joint project of the

Ten Year Review of Queue Scheduling of the Hobby‐Eberly Telescope

“…A subjective analysis of the HET science return reveals that we have been most successful by concentrating on target-ofopportunity surveys (e.g., Frieman et al 2007), synoptic programs (e.g., McArthur et al 2004;Kaspi et al 2007), and surveys with a wide distribution on the sky (e.g., Sowards-Emmerd et al 2005). For more information about completed science programs, see Ramsey (2005) and L. Ramsey et al (2007, in preparation). Most of the incomplete programs have been pencil-beam surveys (e.g., many visits to a single target, or many targets in a single, small region of the sky).…”

“…For more information about completed science programs, see Ramsey (2005) and L. Ramsey et al (2007, in preparation). Most of the incomplete programs have been pencil-beam surveys (e.g., many visits to a single target, or many targets in a single, small region of the sky).…”