colorado space grant update western state college
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Colorado Space Grant Update Western State College. Suzanne Taylor September 9, 2011. Exoplanet transit light curves. Goals: To provide students with astronomical observing and data processing experience To accurately reproduce light curves of known transiting exoplanets - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Colorado Space Grant UpdateWestern State College
Suzanne TaylorSeptember 9, 2011
Exoplanet transit light curvesGoals: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