UVic Planet Search
Extra-Solar Planet Systems
See the
Extrasolar
Planets Encyclopaedia for information on all the planets.
Using our
automated 0.5 meter telescope.
we take pictures of a star and the nearby stars. We measure the
brightness of the 9 brightest stars and compare them one to each other.
If it becomes cloudy then all the stars will become fainter by the same amount
and their relative brightness will not change.
The importance of detecting transits of the planet is that if we see
the transit then we know that the planet's orbital plane is in the
line of sight and the mass of the planet can then be calculated.
The radius of the planet can be found from the duration of the eclipse,
assuming a radius of the star and then the density of the planet can
be found.
So far we have looked at three stars, which have been discovered to
have planets orbiting them. Namely:
-
HD187123 which does not have eclipses.
-
HD209458 which does have eclipses.
-
HD68988 which does not have eclipses so far.
-
NGC 7086 which does not have stars with transiting planets so far.
Send comments/suggestions/problems to
robb@
uvic.ca