Transit Search from Antarctica and Chile - Comparison and Combination

Abstract

Observing sites at the East-Antarctic plateau are considered to provide exceptional conditions for astronomy. The aim of this work is to assess its potential for detecting transiting extrasolar planets through a comparison and combination of photometric data from Antarctica with time series from a midlatitude site. During 2010, the two small aperture telescopes ASTEP 400 (Dome C) and BEST II (Chile) together performed an observing campaign of two target fields and the transiting planet WASP-18b. For the latter, a bright star, Dome C appears to yield an advantageous signal-to-noise ratio. For field surveys, both Dome C and Chile appear to be of comparable photometric quality. However, within two weeks, observations at Dome C yield a transit detection efficiency that typically requires a whole observing season in Chile. For the first time, data from Antarctica and Chile have been combined to extent the observational duty cycle. This approach is both feasible in practice and favorable for transit search, as it increases the detection yield by 12-18%.

22 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in PASP (in press)

References in corpus (11)

• The Second-Generation Guide Star Catalog: Description and Properties
• Effects of Orbital Eccentricity on Extrasolar Planet Transit Detection and Lightcurves
• Astrometry in Wide-field Surveys
• Predicting the Yields of Photometric Surveys for Transiting Extrasolar Planets
• Atmospheric scintillation at Dome C, Antarctica: implications for photometry and astrometry
• Prospects of long-time-series observations from Dome C for transit search
• Periodic variable stars in CoRoT field LRa02 observed with BEST II
• Characterization of CoRoT target fields with BEST: Identification of periodic variable stars in the IR01 field
• Identification of Variable Stars in COROT's First Main Observing Field (LRc1)
• Improved Variable Star Search in Large Photometric Data Sets -- New Variables in CoRoT Field LRa02 Detected by BEST II
• Characterization of CoRoT target fields with BEST: Identification of periodic variable stars in the LRa1 field

Cited by in corpus (3)

• First results of the Kourovka Planet Search: discovery of transiting exoplanet candidates in the first three target fields
• Scientific Goals of the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey (KISS)
• Six winters of photometry from Dome C, Antarctica: challenges, improvements, and results from the ASTEP experiment