Amateur
Observations of exoplanet TrES-2b
I'm pleased to report my observation, on 2006, Sep
08/09, of a TrES-2 egress, from my observatory in
Belgium. The resulting light curve is shown below.
I'm pretty satisfied by the outcome, taking into
account the fact that the observations were made in
strong moonlight (nearly full moon). It's an
exciting experience, because back in September 2004,
I made the first ever amateur transit observations
of TrES-1b,
about 8 days or so after its discovery announcement,
and now, almost 2 years later, I managed to probably
capture the first TrES-2b amateur observations, at
the day of the discovery announcement.
TrES-2b transit observations at
CBA Belgium Observatory - 2006, Sep 08/09
Here are some technical details : observations were
made at CBA Belgium Observatory, using two 0.35-m
f/6.3 Celestron telescopes, each equipped with an
SBIG ST-7XME CCD camera. I simultaneously made
unfiltered and R-band observations (hence the 2
telescopes). The light curve above is unfiltered,
and each dot in the curve is the average value of 5
successive observations (binned). The gray lines
show the standard deviation (about 4 millimag on
average). Exposure time was 15 to 20 sec.
The egress is very evident in the light curve,
and happened right at the predicted time. The
transit depth was approx. 0.0155 mag, which again
corresponds well with the value published in the
discovery paper.
October 10/11, 2006
Despite the strong moonlight, I decided to
observe the TrES-2b transit of Oct 10/11, 2006 from
CBA Belgium Observatory, because it would provide me
with an opportunity to cover the full transit from
ingress till egress. I used a 0.35-m f/6.3 telescope
and ST-7XME CCD camera, equipped with an R-band
(Cousins) filter. In the below light curve, each dot
is the average value of 4 successive observations
(binned). Gray lines denote standard deviations.
Exposure time was 50-60 sec.
TrES-2b transit observations at
CBA Belgium Observatory - 2006, Oct 10/11
