Proposal #15

I am working with a high school science teacher who is taking my graduate Astrophysics course this semester at Bridgewater State University (BSU). All the students in the course need to do a project that involves collecting astonomical data, analyzing it, and sharing it at the end of the semester in a presentation. One of my students and I want to make observations of WASP 43 b - for both of us to have data to learn from. WASP 43b is a known exoplanet system, where it takes just over an hour for the planet to transit its host star. We think it is wise to make observations of a well known system (so we know how do do analysis, etc) before we start trying to observe candidate systems. We would like to request observing time on the Sonoita Research Observatory (SRO), the same facility that a BSU undergraduate got excellent CoRot-2b data from. Our goal is to plot the WASO 43b data and compare it to existing data, and duplicate some of the analysis already done on this expoplanet system. We have used the exoplanet transit database and the SRO coordinates to find some transits that will be visible in March. They are:

Tmid (HJD) BEGIN (UT/h,A) CENTER (DD.MM. UT/h,A) END (UT/h,A)
2456361.866 10.03 8:12 (44°,SW) 10.03. 8:47 (39°,SW) 10.03 9:21 (33°,SW)
2456362.680 11.03 3:43 (36°,SE) 11.03. 4:18 (41°,SE) 11.03 4:53 (46°,SE)
2456366.747 15.03 5:20 (50°,S) 15.03. 5:55 (51°,S) 15.03 6:30 (51°,S)
2456370.814 19.03 6:57 (48°,SW) 19.03. 7:32 (45°,SW) 19.03 8:07 (40°,SW)
2456371.628 20.03 2:29 (29°,SE) 20.03. 3:04 (35°,SE) 20.03 3:38 (40°,SE)
2456374.882 23.03 8:34 (33°,SW) 23.03. 9:09 (26°,SW) 23.03 9:44 (19°,W)
2456375.695 24.03 4:06 (46°,SE) 24.03. 4:41 (49°,S) 24.03 5:15 (51°,S)

We would love as much data as possible, given observing conditions and other demands on the telescope. It would also be a smart idea to obtain data for 30 minutes before the transit begins, and 30 minutes afterwards. We defer to your expertise on exposure time and which filter is appropriate given what we are trying to do. Please let me know if I can provide any more information! And we thank you. Martina Arndt