Colorado Space Grant Update Western State College Suzanne Taylor September 9, 2011
Exoplanet transit light curves Goals: 1.To provide students with astronomical observing and data processing experience 2.To accurately reproduce light curves of known transiting exoplanets 3.To confirm and characterize light curves of exoplanet candidates
Current status All instrumentation is in place and operational Camera Autoguider Filter wheel Rough light curves have been obtained
Rough light curve Wasp-10b
Successes Stumbling blocks Learned operational limits of instrumentation informed target selection → better data Student has gained extensive experience in telescope and associated instrumentation operation Poorly designed telescope gears numerous tracking/guiding issues Conflicting schedules, broken ankle, cloudy nights Far less summer observing than originally planned
The Future Need to improve telescope gearing Possibility of using better designed (but smaller) telescope Once we can consistently reproduce known light curves we’ll start looking at unconfirmed Kepler candidates Testing out the new filters