Red Dots Initiative: Science and Opportunities in Finding Planets Around the Nearest Red-Dwarfs (Abstract)

Volume 46 number 2 (2018)

Guillem Anglada Escude

School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, G. O. Jones Building, 327 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom; g.anglada@qmul.ac.uk

Abstract

(Abstract only) Nearby red dwarf stars are ideal grounds to search for small planets. The Pale Red Dot campaign (2016) consisted in continuously monitoring of Proxima Centauri with the HARPS spectrometer. This campaign was aimed at measuring the motion of the star caused by a planet orbiting it using the Doppler effect. Although this is a mature technique to find planets, we are at the level where stellar activity contaminates the Doppler measurements and it is at the same level of the planetary signals under investigation. For this reason, additional information needs to be collected from the star. In particular, quasi-simultaneous photometric observations to the Doppler measurements are very useful to distinguish certain kinds of spurious signals from true planets. In 2017 we performed a second campaign called Red Dots where three more very nearby red-dwarfs were monitored spectroscopically and photometrically over three months. Many of the photometric observations were contributed by several pro-am astronomers with moderate size telescopes (~ 0.4-m apertures), which are ideal for this kind of observations. I will review the status of the project, and discuss further opportunities for pro-am astronomers to contribute to this science cause.