In February 2013, the LEECH (LBTI Exozodi Exoplanet Common Hunt) survey began its 100-night campaign from the Large Binocular Telescope atop Mount Graham in Arizona. LEECH nearly complements other high-contrast planet imaging efforts by observing stars in L' band (3.8 microns) as opposed to the shorter wavelength near-infrared bands (1-2.3 microns). This part of the spectrum offers deeper mass sensitivity for intermediate age (several hundred Myr-old) systems, since their Jovian-mass planets radiate predominantly in the mid-infrared. In this proceedings, we present the science goals for LEECH and a preliminary contrast curve from some early data.
@article{arxiv.1401.0481,
title = {LEECH: A 100 Night Exoplanet Imaging Survey at the LBT},
author = {Andrew Skemer and Daniel Apai and Vanessa Bailey and Beth Biller and Mickael Bonnefoy and Wolfgang Brandner and Esther Buenzli and Laird Close and Justin Crepp and Denis Defrere and Silvano Desidera and Josh Eisner and Simone Esposito and Jonathan Fortney and Thomas Henning and Phil Hinz and Karl-Heinz Hofmann and Jarron Leisenring and Jared Males and Rafael Millan-Gabet and Katie Morzinski and Apurva Oza and Ilaria Pascucci and Jenny Patience and George Rieke and Dieter Schertl and Joshua Schlieder and Mike Skrutskie and Kate Su and Gerd Weigelt and Charles E. Woodward and Neil Zimmerman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1401.0481},
year = {2015}
}