Howard, Andrew and Horowitz, Paul and Coldwell, Charles and Klein, Samuel and Sung, Anne and Wolff, Jonathan (2000) Optical SETI at Harvard-Smithsonian. In: Bioastronomy '99: A New Era in the Search for Life. Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series. No.213. Astronomical Society of the Pacific , San Francisco, CA, pp. 545-552. ISBN 9781583810446. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170705-135151564
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Abstract
A high-intensity pulsed laser, teamed with a moderate sized transmitting telescope, forms an efficient interstellar beacon. To a distant observer in the direction of its slender beam, such a laser transmitter, built with "Earth 2000" technology only, would appear (during its brief pulse) a thousand times brighter than our sun in broadband visible light; even at ranges of 1000 light years a single nanosecond laser pulse would deliver roughly a thousand photons to a 10-meter receiving telescope. We have built a photometer to search for such unresolved pulses, and are using it in a piggyback targeted search of some 2500 nearby solar-type stars. The photometer receives about 1/3 of the light focused by the 1.5-meter optical reflector, otherwise unused by the primary experiment (a stellar radial-velocity survey). A beamsplitter followed by a pair of fast hybrid avalanche detectors is triggered in coincidence to record the time and intensity profile of large pulses. In the first year of operation the system has made ~8500 observations of ~2500 separate stellar candidates, amounting to 50 days of cumulative observation time. We review those observations, and suggest follow-on experiments.
Item Type: | Book Section | |||||||||
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Additional Information: | © 2000 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Provided by the NASA Astrophysics Data System. We graciously recognize the enlightened support of The Planetary Society, The Bosack-Kruger Foundation, and The SETI Institute. | |||||||||
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Series Name: | Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series | |||||||||
Issue or Number: | 213 | |||||||||
Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20170705-135151564 | |||||||||
Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20170705-135151564 | |||||||||
Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | |||||||||
ID Code: | 78771 | |||||||||
Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | |||||||||
Deposited By: | Tony Diaz | |||||||||
Deposited On: | 05 Jul 2017 22:36 | |||||||||
Last Modified: | 31 Oct 2019 02:17 |
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