Some more Exoplanet transits for the ExoClock project:
Astronomy every Thursday
Some more Exoplanet transits for the ExoClock project:
Five more sets of observations for the ExoClock project by member & trustee Simon Dawes.
HAT-P-19 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a K-type star. Its mass is 0.277 Jupiters, it takes 4 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.04599 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2010. Ref:https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/hat-p-19-b/
TOI-4087 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. Its mass is 0.73 Jupiters, it takes 3.2 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.04469 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2023. Ref:https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/toi-4087-b/
KELT-1 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. Its mass is 27.23 Jupiters, it takes 1.2 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.02466 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2012. Ref: https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/kelt-1-b/
KELT-16 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. Its mass is 2.75 Jupiters, it takes 1 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.02044 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2017. Ref: https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/kelt-16-b/
TOI-1431 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an A-type star. Its mass is 3.12 Jupiters, it takes 2.7 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.046 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2021. Ref: https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/toi-1431-b/
Martin Crow and Simon Dawes have been busy taking more measurements of Exoplanet transits for the ExoClock project. Below are some of their latest ones.
''TrES-2b (also known as Kepler-1b or GSC 03549-02811b) is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star GSC 03549-02811 located 750 light years away from the Solar System in Draco. The planet was identified in 2011 as the darkest known exoplanet, reflecting less than 1% of any light that hits it. Reflecting less light than charcoal, on the surface the planet is said to be pitch black. The planet's mass and radius indicate that it is a gas giant with a bulk composition similar to that of Jupiter. Unlike Jupiter, but similar to many planets detected around other stars, TrES-2b is located very close to its star and belongs to the class of planets known as hot Jupiters. This system was within the field of view of the Kepler spacecraft. It was discovered on August 21, 2006 by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES) by detecting the transit of the planet across its parent star using Sleuth (Palomar Observatory, California) and PSST (Lowell Observatory, Arizona), part of the TrES network of 10–cm telescopes. The discovery was confirmed by the W. M. Keck Observatory on September 8, 2006, by measuring the radial velocity of the star that hosts TrES-2b.'' Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrES-2b
HAT-P-37b is an exoplanet in the constellation Draco.
''HAT-P-37 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 1.169 Jupiters, it takes 2.8 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.0379 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2011.'' Ref:https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/hat-p-37-b/
''Qatar-4b is a super-jupiter orbiting the star Qatar-4 every 1.8 days in Andromeda. It was discovered in 2016 by the Qatar Exoplanet Survey (QES).
This planet has a very short orbit, with only 1.8 days for it to complete an orbit around Qatar-4. The period corresponds with a separation of around 0.03 AU, which is almost 20 times closer than Mercury is to the Sun. Despite that, it has a perfectly round orbit. Since the host is an active star, Qatar-4 may be destroyed by tidal waves from the star.'' Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar-4b
''TrES-3b is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star GSC 03089-00929. It has an orbital period of just 31 hours and nearly twice the mass of Jupiter.
The planet TrES-3b is named Umbäässa. The name was selected in the NameExoWorlds campaign by Liechtenstein, during the 100th anniversary of the IAU. In the local dialect of southern Liechtenstein, Umbäässa is a small and barely visible ant.
Here is the Exo-Planet transit of HAT-P-55b taken on the 11th May 2024 by Simon Dawes for the ExoClock project. Simon did the observation on the same night as the 'Great Aurora', it finished in twilight so he lost about an hour of data.
HAT-P-55b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 0.596 Jupiters, it takes 3.6 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.04628 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2015.
Next is the Exo-Planet transit of TrES-3b taken on the 15th May 2024 by Simon Dawes also for the ExoClock project.
Simon wrote ''The night wasn't great, there was a light mist, 1/4 moon, and high cloud, I didn't expect much given the conditions and the large change in altitude of the object, but I think it came out ok. The shape of the transit suggests it just grazes the limb of the host star (from our perspective).''
TrES-3b orbits the star GSC 03089-00929 in the constellation Hercules about 10 degrees west of the star called Vega. It is the third transiting planet found by the Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey.
The planet TrES-3b is named Umbäässa. The name was selected in the NameExoWorlds campaign by Liechtenstein, during the 100th anniversary of the IAU. In the local dialect of southern Liechtenstein, Umbäässa is a small and barely visible ant. TrES-3b has an orbital period of just 31 hours and nearly twice the mass of Jupiter.
One more for the Exoclock project. This time the transit of exoplanet Qatar-9b measured by Simon Dawes and Martin Crow on the same night. Qatar-9 b is a hot Jupiter exoplanet in Ursa Major that orbits a K-type star. Its mass is 1.19 Jupiters, it takes 1.5 days to complete one orbit of its star and is 0.0234 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2019.
A nice montage of the ExoPlanet transists Simon did in 2023 for the ExoClock project.
Five more transits done!
TOI-3688 A b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 0.98 Jupiters, it takes 3.2 days to complete one orbit of its star and is 0.0456 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2023.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/8781/toi-3688-a-b/
Exoplanet GPX-1 b is in the constellation of Perseus. GPX-1 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. Its mass is 19.7 Jupiters, it takes 1.7 days to complete one orbit of its star and is 0.0338 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2021.
Exoplanet Qatar-5b is located in the Andromeda constellation. Qatar-5 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 4.32 Jupiters, it takes 2.9 days to complete one orbit of its star and is 0.04127 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2017.
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/3488/qatar-5-b/
2023 October 21/22
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
3rd ExoClock Annual Meeting
CMHASD trustees Martin Crow, Simon Dawes and Dr Mike Rushton attended the 3rd Annual Conference of ExoClock in Greece, a project to improve the ephemeris of exo-planet transits for the European Space Agencies, Aerial Mission, due to launch in 2029.
During the conference Martin and Simon were awarded ‘Silver Awards’ for reaching over 100 successful ExoClock observations. Congratulations Martin & Simon!
Below are 2 accounts of the trip written by Martin and Simon.
Martin wrote ''When this year’s annual meeting was announced and that it was going to be in Greece, it felt that it was important to attend in person. The previous in person meeting, the first one since lock down, had been held at UCL in London. Because the project is international the annual meetings are a rare opportunity to meet other like-minded observers who we only normally see over Zoom.
Simon (who is also a regular contributor to ExoClock) and Mike (who is interested in the project and has done some transits with his EvScope) also come along.
We flew out on the Thursday which give us a free day to explore Thessaloniki before the weekend meeting. Our hotel was well placed in the middle of Thessaloniki although it was on a busy road junction.
I knew nothing of the place before we went. It is steeped in history and in cats. Yes cats. They were everywhere.
The Museum of Archaeology showed off the amazing finds of stuff made in and around Thessaloniki generally between 2000 and 2400 years ago. Delicate pottery and intricate gold jewellery, which had only survived because they were grave goods, were on display. The workmanship was incredible.
We also visited the White Tower (Middle Ages), the Rotunda (Roman) still with its domed roof and some of the massive city walls.
The weather was warm and there were plenty of restaurants to choose from. We took advice from the locals and kept away from the main tourist drags. The food was good, not expensive, and the portions were large. What not to like – providing you are not a vegan or veggie – there was a lot of meat.
The location of the meeting was just a 15-minute walk from the hotel.
The Saturday meeting kicked off with an Introduction given by Anastasia Kokori from UCL and various talks followed about the science surrounding the Ariel space telescope, the evolution of hot Jupiter's and the possible use of machine learning with charting exoplanets.
After lunch there were more talks about Ariel and ExoClock. Following on from afternoon tea were more talks relating to the ExoClock project. Some were better than others.
On Sunday the day started off with talks from students taking part in ExoClock and using its data.
There were then two short talks given by amateur astronomers. One of them was me. The brief was to talk about our experience of being involved with the ExoClock project. I described when I had first got started and the positive and supportive aspects of the software and project in general. I finished by putting it all into context, that is to say, how it allows me as an amateur astronomer to contribute to an area that is a frontier of astronomical research. Awesome.
After the coffee break there were some very interesting talks/discussions about the focus groups and, also, education outreach in schools.
Finally, after lunch, there was more on the working groups some of which, I have to say, that I struggled to follow. Plus, it had been a long day!!
What I liked about the talks was that they were not too long, mostly 20-minutes. This is a good length and kept my attention, any longer and I would be drifting off. I found most of the topics interesting with fresh information on top of what I already knew.
All in all, a very worthwhile trip.''
Simon wrote ''We arrived on Thursday evening, and after dinner at a traditional Greek Taverna (ταβέρνα in Greek) we headed back to the hotel for Tea, in time to ‘zoom in’ to the societies lecture by Paul Money on the Vikings on Mars.
The following day was dedicated to sightseeing, Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, The Arch of Galerius, The Rotunda (also commissioned by Galerius in the 4th Century AD), The Water Front and the White Tower and finally the Roman wall. One day really wasn’t enough for the sights and sites and we only scratched the surface of what Thessaloniki has to offer.
The conference was over 2 days, most lectures being 30 minute in length and ranging from the easy to follow to the latest mathematical, statistical and AI techniques associated with the Aerial and related Space Missions. Including, in one of the talks, a description of 24hrs of wasted Hubble time due to inaccurate exo-planet transit timings, really bringing home the impact amateur astronomers can have in this field by improving these ephemeris. There were also many talks on how MSc students were using exoclock data (hopefully crediting the observers) to understand better the characteristics of these planetary systems.
Martin and I were both awarded ‘Silver Awards’ for reaching over 100 successful observations (which is approximately 1000 hours of observing and maybe 300 hours in processing when you also take into account the failures due to weather or equipment issues) by the Principle Investigator (Giovanna Tinetti) and the leader of the Exo-Clock programme (Anastasia Kokori).
We headed home on Monday morning.''
For more information about the conference click here https://www.exoclock.space/annual_meetings
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One more for the ExoClock project - this one being the first for CMHASD trustee and treasurer Keith Rickard. It is of Exoplanet HAT-P-23b in the constellation Delphinus.
''HAT-P-23 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a G-type star. Its mass is 2.09 Jupiters, it takes 1.2 days to complete one orbit of its star, and is 0.0232 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2010.'' Ref:https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/1345/hat-p-23-b/
For more information about HAT-P-23b click here https://exoplanet.eu/catalog/hat_p_23_b--737/
Another for the ExoClock project by Simon Dawes of the transit of exoplanet TrES-3b.
TrES-3b is in a very tight orbit around its host star, TrES-3, transiting the stellar disk once per 31 hours. For comparison, Mercury orbits the sun once every 88 days. TrES-3b is just a little larger than Jupiter, yet orbits around its parent star much closer than Mercury does, making it a “hot jupiter.”