MITM16
Confirming terrestrial transits outside the solar system - remote observing, smart telescopes and transit expeditions
It is designed to discover and photometrically detect transits of planets
outside the solar system with properties that overlap with our system's inner,
terrestrial planets.
With the choice of the southern direction of PLATO's first long observation
phase, "LOPS2" [and the concentration of long period transit events near the
ecliptic poles for the TESS objects of interest, including planetary candidates
and confirmed, planets with periods similar to Mercury's 88d]
a new challenge is taking shape for transit signal validation and decontamination
by time critical photometry that is also within the range of experienced citizen
astronomers.
With the increasing orbital periods also the duration of the transits
become longer, reaching the length of an equinoctial night for an Earth
orbit around a solar-like stars, in particular towards terrestrial sized
planet candidate transit-like signal.
The challenges for citizen photometry are manifold: 1) the number of citizen
observers in the global south is much smaller than in the North and they
needed to be specifically addressed. 2) the long transits require new
observation strategies because with increasing periods it is increasingly
difficult to apply standard community procedures, as e.g. in the
Exoplanet Transit Database.
In contrast to transit timing two topics are priority:
1) The simultaneous photometry of target and contaminants within
the spacecraft photometry contamination range (PSF) that is of
small concern for transit-timing;
2) The detectability and measurement accuracy of the transit depth
achievable on the full transit duration timescale as opposed to
the ingress/egress timescale that is important for timing.
The session aims to collect first results on long transits, strategies to
advertise and collect long period transit in the global south and moderate
southern latitudes, including near the polar circle, design of campaigns to
aid candidate validation of the space transit searches and in particular
discuss the "contamination" photometry with small telescopes.
Four recent developments will be a thematic focus:
1) The presentation of the new VarAstro platform of VSES/CAS;
2) The performance of "smart telescopes" with open data policy
for long-transit validation and measurement;
3) The community requirements for the support of citizen expeditions to remote sites
for top priority transits as the potential "second earth events".
4) Prospects of joint operation of professional and amateur observatories
A key goal is to collect experience to formulate technical and organizational
requirements for the accurate photometry of rare "Venus transit"
like events involving both citizen observers and professional observatories.
Three 30 min Intros for ESA missions PLATO, ARIEL and TESS
30 min Intros Citizen and Missions - synergies and competition
Platform presentation talks 30 min : VarAstro the launch of CAS-VSES open platform , Exoclock (HOPS)
Instruments: 3 contributions
Software: 4 contrib
Community discussion: 4 contrib