Amateur Observations of exoplanet TrES-2b

 
I'm pleased to report my observation, on 2006, Sep 08/09, of a TrES-2 egress, from my observatory in Belgium. The resulting light curve is shown below. I'm pretty satisfied by the outcome, taking into account the fact that the observations were made in strong moonlight (nearly full moon). It's an exciting experience, because back in September 2004, I made the first ever amateur transit observations of TrES-1b, about 8 days or so after its discovery announcement, and now, almost 2 years later, I managed to probably capture the first TrES-2b amateur observations, at the day of the discovery announcement.


TrES-2b transit observations at CBA Belgium Observatory - 2006, Sep 08/09


Here are some technical details : observations were made at CBA Belgium Observatory, using two 0.35-m f/6.3 Celestron telescopes, each equipped with an SBIG ST-7XME CCD camera. I simultaneously made unfiltered and R-band observations (hence the 2 telescopes). The light curve above is unfiltered, and each dot in the curve is the average value of 5 successive observations (binned). The gray lines show the standard deviation (about 4 millimag on average). Exposure time was 15 to 20 sec.

The egress is very evident in the light curve, and happened right at the predicted time. The transit depth was approx. 0.0155 mag, which again corresponds well with the value published in the discovery paper.
 

October 10/11, 2006

Despite the strong moonlight, I decided to observe the TrES-2b transit of Oct 10/11, 2006 from CBA Belgium Observatory, because it would provide me with an opportunity to cover the full transit from ingress till egress. I used a 0.35-m f/6.3 telescope and ST-7XME CCD camera, equipped with an R-band (Cousins) filter. In the below light curve, each dot is the average value of 4 successive observations (binned). Gray lines denote standard deviations. Exposure time was 50-60 sec.


TrES-2b transit observations at CBA Belgium Observatory - 2006, Oct 10/11

  

 
 

 

 

Copyright © 2006 - Tonny Vanmunster.