  The ALPS experiment at DESY searches for light particles which are coupling
very weakly to photons. Primary physics goal is the search for axion like
particles in a photon regeneration experiment. Central part of the experimental
setup is a five Tesla strong superconducting HERA dipole magnet. During two
operation periods in the years 2007 and 2008 we have collected first data and
explored the sensitivity of the setup. A Fabry Perot laser cavity is being set
up in order to increase the sensitivity by more than one order of magnitude.
