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OATS-UNI/TS SEMINAR
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Speaker: Paolo Di Marcantonio & Stefano Cristiani (INAF - OAT)

Title: Espresso - No Limits
Date: Wednesday, March 30rd, 2011
Time: 15:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni

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Abstract: ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) is a third generation instrument for the VLT, developed by a European consortium including, besides INAF, the Observatoire de Geneve, the Instituto de Astrofisica de las Canarias,a Portuguese consortium and ESO. ESPRESSO will combine the efficiency of modern echelle spectrograph design with extreme radial-velocity precision. It will be installed at the Coudè focus of the ESO VLT with the possibility of receiving light from any of the 4 UTs, ensuring a great flexibility and also the capability of incoherently combining the light of the 4 telescopes in a configuration equivalent to a telescope of 16m diameter. The main scientific objectives will be the search and characterization of rocky exoplanets in the habitable zone of quiet, nearby G to M-dwarfs and the analysis of the variability of fundamental physical constants. Within the ESPRESSO consortium INAF has the responsibility of the optical design, electronics, control and data-analysis software, besides Science Support and System Engineering. ESPRESSO is considered the sequel of HARPS and is the precursor of CODEX, the super-stable high-resolution optical spectrograph for the E-ELT that aims to directly measure the time variation of the expansion rate of the Universe.
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Contact: Paolo Di Marcantonio (INAF - OAT)