Colorado Space Grant Update Western State College

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