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Paper: The TeMPEST Transit Search: Preliminary Results
Volume: 294, Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets
Page: 375
Authors: Baliber, N. R.; Cochran, W. D.
Abstract: The Texas, McDonald Photometric Extrasolar Search for Transits, TeMPEST, is a photometric search for transits of extrasolar giant planets orbiting at distances less than approximately 0.1 AU to their parent stars. This survey is being conducted with the McDonald Observatory 0.76 meter Prime Focus Camera (PFC), which provides a 46.2 x 46.2 arcsec field of view. From August through December, 2001, we obtained our first full season of data on two fields in the Galactic plane, one in the constellation Cassiopeia and the other in Camelopardus. In these two fields, V-band time-series photometry with a cadence of about 9 minutes has been performed on over 5000 stars with sufficient precision, better than 0.01 mag, to detect transits of close-orbiting Jovian planets. We present representative light curves from variable stars and an eclipsing system from our 2001 data. The TeMPEST project is funded by the NASA Origins program.
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