Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21542319p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #423.19; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.329
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We report on test observations, done through the UKIRT Service Observing Program, of the transiting extrasolar system XO-3. While optical monitoring of transiting extrasolar systems is fairly routine, extension to the near infrared (NIR) has only recently been accomplished. Since the emergent flux from close-in planets peaks in the NIR, these bands are sensitive to atmospheric temperature and energy distribution. Furthermore, molecular bands in the planetary atmospheres alter the flux across ground-observable NIR bands; observations then constrain the atmospheric molecular abundances. We used 2MASS K-band images to examine transiting systems for their suitability for differential photometry. We selected XO-3 as one of our top choices and acquired one hour of randomly-timed data in Feb 09. We used a narrowband filter centered at 2.12 microns partly to avoid saturation and also to investigate the suitability of narrowband filters for these types of observations. Using standard aperture photometry techniques and a differential photometry algorithm provided by C. Broeg, we investigated the variability of the stars in the field. We found that XO-3 varied more than stars of comparable magnitude and, after construction of a light curve and comparing it to the XO-3 ephemeris, we discovered our data included roughly the last 25% of a primary transit. We will present analysis of our data. The success of these observations motivated us to propose for multiple narrowband filter observations in 2010A in order to construct a pseudo-spectrum of an extrasolar planet's emission. The routine acquisition of narrowband data such as we seek will significantly advance our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres.
Kruger Andrew
Prilepina Valentina
Richter Manuel
Rodriguez Nancy
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