HAT-P-12b - A transiting "Hot Saturn" in CVn

Fascinating work Anthony.

Thats pretty amazing what you can do with a fairly small instrument.
I curious what the measurement error would be on the measured magnitudes for the camera you are using. Its a very small change in magnitude.

Thanks Frank and John.

John, your question is of great personal interest since it allows me to gauge, in part, what chances I have at capturing a particular transit. To this end, I do keep an eye on the reported error by AIP4Win and which is the software I use for my differential photometry.

Anyway, to answer your question, it ranges from 0.003 to 0.008 mag and which is a relief since most transits involve a change in the magnitude of the parent star between 0.010 and 0.025 mags.

Anthony.

Wow, that's all the more amazing. It really pushes the limits of the equipment-like all the best science. Well done !!

Anthony

In answer to your question - your method appears fine to me (though I was supicious at first). I experimented with a spreadsheet to simulate captured transit data (a modified sine plot + random variation).
I tried several random variations in the data from 10% to 50% used your 11 point mean method and also applied the best regression curves I could and have come to the conlusion that your averaging exercise was hard to beat. I really enjoyed that little digression - will file away for future exploration.

By the way how did you obtain the expected transit time to know when to start capturing your data?

Good luck

Mark

Congratulations Anthony,

An excellent result.

I'm exploring the concept of simultaneously imaging in dual bands.

If feasible, it should provide interesting data, eg. planetary atmospheric data.

Eamonn A

www.kingslandobservatory.com