J/PASP/135/A5001 Unistellar Exoplanet Campaign (Peluso+, 2023)
The Unistellar Exoplanet Campaign:
Citizen science results and inherent education opportunities.
Peluso D.O., Esposito T.M., Marchis F., Dalba P.A., Sgro L.,
Megowan-Romanowicz C., Pennypacker C., Carter B., Wright D., Avsar A.M.,
Perrocheau A., (the Unistellar Citizen Scientists)
<Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 135, a5001 (2023)>
=2023PASP..135a5001P 2023PASP..135a5001P (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Stars, double and multiple ; Exoplanets ; Optical
Keywords: astronomy education - amateur astronomers - exoplanets -
transit photometry
Abstract:
This paper presents early results from and prospects for exoplanet
science using a citizen science private/public partnership observer
network managed by the SETI Institute in collaboration with
Unistellar. The network launched in 2020 January and includes 163
citizen scientist observers across 21 countries. These observers can
access a citizen science mentoring service developed by the SETI
Institute and are also equipped with Unistellar Enhanced Vision
Telescopes. Unistellar technology and the campaign's associated
photometric reduction pipeline enable each telescope to readily obtain
and communicate light curves to observers with signal-to-noise ratio
suitable for publication in research journals. Citizen astronomers of
the Unistellar Exoplanet (UE) Campaign routinely measure transit
depths of ≳1% and contribute their results to the exoplanet research
community. The match of the detection system, targets, and scientific
and educational goals is robust. Results to date include 281 transit
detections out of 651 processed observations. In addition to this
campaign's capability to contribute to the professional field of
exoplanet research, UE endeavors to drive improved science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics education outcomes by
engaging students and teachers as participants in science
investigations, that is, learning science by doing science.
Description:
The Unistellar Exoplanet Campaign has grown from just hundreds of
11.4cm, portable, and easy-to-use telescopes and one detected
exoplanet transit (from internal testing) in 2019 to over 10,000
worldwide telescopes and over 1000 exoplanet observations and 281
detections as of 2022 August. The scientific scope of our campaign
includes exoplanet confirmations for missions, such as TESS,
short-period ephemeris maintenance, long-period confirmation,
multi-time-zone exoplanet observations, and more generalized exoplanet
follow-up and monitoring to meet the demand.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 151 1018 Full master spreadsheet for all 1018 exoplanet
observations from UE to date
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 16 A16 --- Name Target name
18- 26 A9 --- OName Other name
28- 79 A52 --- Obsev Observer name(a)
81- 91 A11 --- Count Observer country
93-102 A10 "date" Obs.date Observation start date (UTC+0)
104-107 F4.1 mag Vmag ?=- Apparent magnitude
109-113 F5.1 10-3 Depth ?=- Extimated depth (in ppt)
115-151 A37 --- Com Detection status
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 05-Apr-2023