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Project Transit Search: Planet Hunting

Posted by Hemos on from the looking-for-our-new-home dept.

An anonymous reader writes "During the nights of Oct. 5 and Oct. 30, backyard sky-watchers will get their chance. Univ. California (St. Cruz) and NASA are enlisting the large amateur astronomy community to use CCD-equipped telescopes and computer-analyzed photographs to find dimming in the only star (HD 209458 b, HD is the Henry Draper star catalog) known to have a planet candidate correctly aligned for the 'transit method' of planet discovery."

2 of 10 comments (clear)

  1. Re:During the nights of October 5th... by greenhide · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Although it's true that the first date has already passed, the second night, October 30, is still a few weeks away.

    I am looking forward to what the results of this are, although I'm betting on a ton of false positives--after all, what sort of people do you expect to be looking in the sky for more planets? It's to be expected that some of them might be overeager to "see" planets that aren't there--the anal probes that aliens plant in abductees are known to make them delusional.

    --
    Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
  2. great news for amateur scientists by Optical+Voodoo+Man · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is amazing! 10 years ago, the experts had no proof that planets existed outside of our solar system; today an amateur with an 8" telescope and a CCD camera can help study them. I love to see technology being put to good use like this.

    I remember when announced they discovered of the first extrasolar planet in 1995. I felt really jealous that some guy who got to work a massive telescope was the one who found it. I thought it was a shame that astronomy was "out of the hands" of the amateur. I'm glad I was wrong.

    Here is a link to a page that has a nice overview of the history and procedures used to find extrasolar planets.