CAOSP abstracts, Volume: 43, No.: 3, year: 2014

Abstract: SuperWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) uses robotic installations on La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) and at Sutherland (South Africa) to survey the sky for transiting exoplanets. At each site, there is an instrument consisting of eight 200 mm camera lenses (0.11 m aperture) backed with Andor e2v CCDs, arranged on a single equatorial fork mount. WASP is responsible for the discovery of 109 transiting exoplanets to date (70 of which have been announced in published papers); more than any other ground-based survey. Besides reviewing the instrumentation and observing strategy, we briefly outline the motivation for such a survey and discuss the place of WASP in the context of similar surveys. We also describe the planet discovery process and the impact of our discoveries on the exoplanets field. The science impact of WASP is not, however, limited to exoplanets; we also summarise some of the non-exoplanet science (including asteroseismology, binary stars, and comets) that has resulted from WASP data. Finally, we discuss the future of WASP and of small aperture, ground-based exoplanet surveys in general, including the forthcoming Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS).