The NGTS clusters survey: understanding the early evolution of stellar and planetary systems

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a state-of-the-art wide-field photometric facility comprised of 12 independent robotic telescopes based at ESO's Paranal Observatory. NGTS is conducting a systematic survey of nearby young open clusters with ages between 1 Myr - 3 Gyr, which are each being monitored at 12-second cadence every clear night over 200-250 day periods. Our aims are to:

<li>Characterise the evolution of stellar rotation, active region lifetimes, flares, and the star-disk interaction;</li>

<li>Detect and characterise transiting planets and eclipsing binaries.</li> 10 open clusters have been observed to date, with early results providing new insights into the early evolution of stellar rotation, flare frequency and the star-disk interaction, as well as precise constraints on stellar evolution theory from new, well-characterised eclipsing binary systems.