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Developing a network of high-stability spectrographs to find Earth twins

25 - 26 January 2027 09:00 - 17:00 Clayton Hotel, Birmingham Free
Mountain-top astronomical observatories with white telescope domes overlooking a sea of clouds under a bright blue sky.

Theo Murphy meeting organised by Dr Annelies Mortier and Dr Heather Cegla

This meeting will discuss a worldwide network of 2-4m class telescopes, fitted with high-resolution (>100k), high-stability (< 50cm/s) spectrographs. Its main science goal would be the characterisation of small and long-period exoplanets through the radial velocity method. This meeting brings together experts in building and operating such spectrographs, analysing the resulting data, and managing large scientific networks.

The programme, including speaker biographies and abstracts, will be available soon. Please note the programme may be subject to change.

Poster session

There will be a poster session on Monday 25 January 2027. Registered attendees will be invited to submit a proposed poster title and abstract (up to 200 words). Acceptances may be made on a rolling basis so we recommend submitting as soon as possible in case the session becomes full. Submissions made within one month of the meeting may not be included in the programme booklet.

Attending the event

This event is intended for researchers in relevant fields.

  • Free to attend and in-person only
  • When requesting an invitation, please briefly state your expertise and reasons for attending
  • Requests are reviewed by the meeting organisers on a rolling basis. You will receive a link to register if your request has been successful
  • Catering options will be available to purchase upon registering. Participants are responsible for booking their own accommodation
  • Please do not book accommodation until you have been invited to attend the meeting by the meeting organisers

Please note that scientific meetings hosted by Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»­ do not necessarily represent a Royal Society position or signify an endorsement of the speakers or content presented.

Enquiries: Scientific Programmes team

Image credit: © iStock.com / Unaihuiziphotography

Organisers

  • Professor Heather Cegla

    Professor Heather Cegla

    Professor Heather Cegla is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Warwick. Her research aims to enable the future confirmation of Earth analogues and improve our understanding of planetary migration and evolution by disentangling stellar and planetary signatures. To do so, she studies stellar variability through a combination of theoretical modelling and observation: employing state-of-the-art 3D simulations to investigate the underlying physics, and using transiting planets to spatially resolve stellar surfaces and determine star–planet orbital alignments

    Heather completed her PhD at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2014, focusing on mitigating granulation noise in the confirmation of low-mass exoplanets using 3D magnetohydrodynamical simulations. She subsequently held a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship at QUB and a CHEOPS Research Fellowship at the University of Geneva. She previously studied Physics, with an emphasis in Astronomy and a minor in Mathematics, at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
  • Dr Annelies Mortier

    Dr Annelies Mortier

    Annelies is an Associate Professor in astronomy and a UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Birmingham. She previously did her PhD in Porto, a postdoc in St Andrews and a Kavli Fellowship in Cambridge. She is an observational astronomer playing with stars and exoplanets. She works on the detection and characterisation of (small) exoplanets, currently mostly using the HARPS-N spectrograph. She studies the link between planetary and stellar parameters, focusing mainly on chemical composition. Annelies also studies the Sun-as-a-star with multiple instruments to understand the processes behind stellar variability and their effect on radial velocity.