Amateur astronomers help

Hi guys and gals

I was just reading this article and had a brainwave - www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MOD...p;ID=8624&SnID=2

These amateur astronomers discovered an Exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system, orbiting another star). And i was just wondering, since alot of our amateur and profesional astronomers have even bigger telescopes than these guys. Want i'm sugesting is that we could gather info and data - kind of like what Dave Mc Dona is doing with the supernovas - www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopic.php?t=7376 .

We have alot of members on this forum and i think that all their eyes and telescopes could help to gather useful information - i.e discover asteroisds, comets and wobles in other stars to detect exoplanets etc.

Just a sugestion, what ye think

John - this is on the AOP list but I think its fair to say that we've had very little "visibility" lately to do anything!

It would be really neat to get this project off the ground but its been tricky enough to get the SN search going (not for lack of volunteers - just lack of clear skies).

By the way, you don;t need particularly large telescopes for exoplanet work. What youy *do* need is a good imager and a very well calibrated imaging train. A well aligned mount with low PE is useful too. But I reckon you do this kind of work with perhaps a reflector of 8".

I agree with your sentiment though - exoplanet huntind is valuable and worthwhile - and within the grasp of amateurs.

Dave

Dr. Nicholas Devaney gave a talk at the Galway Astrofest a couple of weeks back "Detecting Extra-Solar Planets with Giant Telescopes" and I asked him about whether or not the pros would be interested in follow-up data collected by amateurs. His answer was a definite yes!

You'd have to hone your imaging and data collecting skills as you will be measuring mili-magnitude changes in the star's brightness, but is is definitely within the realms of do-ability for the well equiped amateur. The size of the telescope is not as important as the quality of the CCD camera needed to do the detection.

You could start getting some practice in by measuring the light curves of variable stars and eclipsing binaries. If you can nail down your technique on these then you are in with a chance of being able to detect eclipsing exo-plantes.

Phil.

I see what ye mean lads ,

I just think that it would be a good thing for us to do on the forum, getting useful info and maybe, just maybe getting recognised like the guys on that website.

Cheers lads

Hi John,

Some of us on these boards carry out various projects and submit data to various professional international publications and organisations.

Here is the following observational work been carried out in Ireland by members on these boards:

1. AOP Supernova search submissions to IAU at Harvard.

2. Astrometric observations of asteroids submissions to IAU MPC Harvard..

3. Exoplanet monitoring of transits submissions to Transit.org.(USA)

4 Asteroid occultations to determine sizes to IOTA

5. Observational detection of EKBOs in the outer solar system IAU MPC.

Other members carry out variable star recordings for AAVSO (USA),
Comet searching for IAU Harvard and meteor recordings submissions to various publications.

I hope that clarifies the level of scientific observations that are been carried out in Ireland by a number of amateur astronomers here.

Eamonn A

MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

Thanks Eamonn

Thats useful info there

I didn't realise that there was so much studies going on, on the boards - behind the scenes.