André Baranne designed precision astronomical spectrographs, including the ELODIE spectrograph, which was used for Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz's discovery of the planetary companion to 51 Pegasi. The instrument combined broad spectral coverage with precise radial velocity measurements.
The scientific goal was to distinguish tiny stellar Doppler shifts from instrumental changes. Its design and calibration supported long-term velocity stability sufficient for detecting giant planetary companions. The original instrument paper reports the construction, data treatment and measured performance, making the observing hardware part of the explanation of the discovery.[ref]
ELODIE: A spectrograph for accurate radial velocity measurements by André Baranne and others. Abstract and instrument description: design for accurate radial velocities and measured long-term stability
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