Author: WebMistress

Another for the ExoClock project......

KPS-1b orbits a star similar to the Sun with a period of 40 hours.

The mass and size of the exoplanet KPS-1b are close to the characteristics of Jupiter, but it is located very close to its parent star so the temperature of the atmosphere KPS-1b is much higher than that of Jupiter.

The discovery was made by the prototype Kourovka Planet Search (KPS) project, which used wide-field CCD data gathered by amateur astronomers using readily available and relatively affordable equipment with astronomers from Belgium, USA, England, France, the Netherlands, Turkey, Portugal, Lithuania, Italy and Canada contributing. 

The night Simon did the observations for KPS - 1b Simon said ''the transparency was low - when I left the society meeting you could see the water particles in the air in the headlamp and under the street lights, so I'm pleased I got anything at all!'' 

Simon Dawes has been busy again with his exoplanet observations for the ExoClock project. Below are his observations.

Exoplanet HAT-P-44b was discovered in 2013 by the HATNet transit survey. Its mass is 0.39 mass of Jupiter and has an orbital period of 4.3 days.

Of Exoplanet WASP -148b Simon said ''This is a 11.8 magnitude star and the dip is 8 thousandths of a magnitude - I think it must be one of the most challenging to observe with my 8" telescope, but the conditions were obviously good and I got this fit very quickly (this is the one I said at last night's meeting that I hadn't submitted because I wanted to see if I could improve - this is the improved reduction) .  WASP 148b is a hot Jupiter, there is another planet in this system (WASP 148c with a 35 day orbit) and the gravitational tug of the outer planet (WASP-148c) perturbs the orbit of the hot Jupiter WASP-148b''

These are the latest exoplanet observations by Martin Crow.

TOI-1298 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star TOI -1298 in the constellation of Ursa Minor.  Its mass is 0.356 Jupiters.  It takes 4.5 days to complete one orbit of its star and is 0.059 AU from its star. TOI-1298 b was discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observatory, in 2021-09.

Martin wrote ''The observations were done as part of the ExoClock synchronous observations group. This particular transit has a depth of <5 thousandths of a magnitude!! To get useful data for this target would require a telescope diameter of at least 400mm or greater. My telescope at 235mm is too small although the dip is clearly detectable buried in the noise. The aim of the project is to combine three or more data sets from similar sized small instruments taken on the same night to increase the accuracy to that achievable with a bigger telescope. This method will help to make otherwise impossible targets viable for the majority of instruments registered on the ExoClock project.''