Wide Angle Search for Planets

The array of robotic telescopes aims to survey the entire sky, simultaneously monitoring many thousands of stars at an apparent visual magnitude from about 7 to 13.

SuperWASP-North is at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the mountain of that name which dominates La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Each observatory consists of an array of eight Canon 200 mm f1.8 lenses backed by high quality 2048 × 2048 science-grade CCDs, the model used is the iKon-L[6] manufactured by Andor Technology.

[9] The observatories continuously monitor the sky, taking a set of images approximately once per minute, gathering up to 100 gigabytes of data per night.

One of the main purpose of WASP was to revolutionize the understanding of planet formation, paving the way for future space missions searching for 'Earth'-like worlds.

WASP-39b and its parent star (artist's impression). [ 10 ]