Tautenburg Observatory and its research on exoplanets
Tautenburg observatory is an observatory in central Germany. One of its main research topics are extrasolar planets. In this talk, I will give an overview of the current status and future prospects of the exoplanet research in Tautenburg. The observatory hosts a 2-m telescope with a high-resolution Echelle spectrograph that has been used in the past 25 years to carry out RV-measurements of exoplanets host stars. The instrument was initially used for the follow-up observation of objects found in the CoRoT mission. Current research focuses on the follow-up observations of TESS objects. One of its recent discoveries was TOI-1408, a star that hosts a hot Jupiter and in a 2:1 resonance to a planet of 7.6 Earth-masses. The institute is also involved in various instrumentation projects. One of them is CARMENES, an optical/near-infrared spectrograph on the 3.5m telescope on Calar Alto. The aim of CARMENES was to search for low-mass planets of M-stars. The result of the survey is that statistically every M-star hosts at least one low-mass planet. The next step will be PLATO mission to be launch in 2026. In contrast to previous missions, PLATO will observe relatively bright stars for several years. Its scientific goals include the study of the evolution of planets, characterising exoplanet systems by identifying long-, and short-period planets, and to find Earth-sized planets on the habitable zones of solar-like stars, and finally to measure their masses. PLATO will initially observe a field in the southern hemisphere, and after that, a field in the northern hemisphere. Together with Ondrejov observatory, and the Universidad Católica de Chile, we have just commissioned PLATOspec. PLATOspec is fibre-fed, high-resolution Echelle spectrograph for the ESO 1.5m telescope in La Silla, Chile. Its first aim is reconnaissance spectroscopy to characterise exoplanet host stars. The second aim is the determination of masses of short-period transiting planets, and the detection of long-period, non-transiting gas-giants in systems in which PLATO found Earth-sized planets. Are most exoplanets-systems like the solar system, or not?