First data release by the Next Generation Transit Survey

Published: 19 Nov 2018

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a ground based exoplanet survey designed to detect Neptune and super-Earth sized planets orbiting around bright stars, using the transit method. The NGTS facility consists of 12 fully-robotic 20cm f/2.8 telescopes located on ESO ground in Paranal. Each telescope has a 2.8x2.8 deg2 field of view and is equipped with a custom filter with a bandpass of 520-890nm, which increases sensitivity to late-K and early-M stars.

The first data release from NGTS includes 24 separate fields that have been completed during the first year of observations (April 2016 to April 2017). A catalogue of the observed sources down to 16th magnitude is provided, together with the light curves obtained with aperture photometry in addition to the reduced, astrometrically calibrated, stacked dithered images. In total, more than two hundred thousand sources were followed, collecting almost 32 billion data points at a 12 second cadence. The volume of the entire NGTS DR1 is 1.7 Tb.

Data files and sky coverage can be discovered via the Science Portal. More information in the accompanying release documentation.