HARPS-N

first light: http://www.tng.iac.es/news/2012/03/25/harpsn_fl/

More information:
http://www.nature.com/news/north-set-for-mass-analysis-of-planets-1.10302
https://plone2.unige.ch/HARPS-N/overview

Excellent news!

Hope they have good luck with this project!

Official operations starting on August 1st, 2012

https://plone2.unige.ch/HARPS-N/news/official-operations-starting-on-august-1st-2012

Lists of GTO targets being pursued by HARPS-N:

Kepler candidates: http://www.tng.iac.es/instruments/harps/data/Kepler_GTO_Targets.txt
Nearby bright stars: http://www.tng.iac.es/instruments/harps/data/RPS_GTO_Targets.txt

Seems to be mainly K dwarfs in the nearby sample, a few relatively well known ones in there (Sigma Draconis, 61 Cygni A/B). As far as I'm aware, HD 3651 is the only known exoplanet host on the list.

Very good K dwarfs my favorite type stars.I am curious what results it will bring to us.Couple interesting KOI like 157 kepler 11? They want to improve massess for these planets?

Laser Comb installed on HARPS-N:

http://www.tng.iac.es/news/2013/02/08/lasercomb/

Updated parameters of Qatar-1 (I don't think this one was an April Fool's joke):

The GAPS programme with HARPS-N at TNG. I: Observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect and characterisation of the transiting system Qatar-1
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0005

Esposito et al. "The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N at TNG. III: The retrograde orbit of HAT-P-18b"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6728

One of the few retrograde planets orbiting a cool star.

(Paper II in the series was about the HIP 11952 planetary system, as discussed here)

Berdiñas et al. "High-cadence spectroscopy of M-dwarfs. I. Analysis of systematic effects in HARPS-N line profile measurements on the bright binary GJ 725A+B"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05312

Uncovers some systematic effects:

Quote :

The systematic effects seem to be related to flux loses due to imperfect corrections of chromatic effects introduced by the Earth’s atmosphere at the telescope-fibre interface. This suspicion is motivated by several measurements and correlations observed in pre-fibre images of the star compared to a number of measurements on the spectrum, most notably changes in the slope of the measured SED. The comparison of measurements between the two stars (and their almost identical systematic behaviour) shows beyond reasonable doubt that the significant variability observed with high-cadence on M-dwarfs has an instrumental origin. While most variability in the width of the line profile is likely to be caused by the algorithms used, smaller residual RV variability remains unexplained.

There are also hints of a ~1.2 Earth mass planet around GJ 725B (a.k.a. Struve/Σ 2398 B) but needs more follow-up observations to confirm whether the signal is periodic.

The authors speak of similar issues with HARPS-ESO. Fortunately, the effects are not severe and appear to be mostly addressable, so this should not have a serious impact on HARPS-N's performance.

The RV variability of B is of clear interest. The p-value for false alarm they give is vanishingly small, but their lack of time resolution is essentially the limiting factor. It is quite likely a planetary signal (stellar variability is unlikely for such a period, and systematics appear to be ruled out), but it will take many more nights of observation to bring a confident solution.