Observations of extrasolar planet transits with the automated telescopes of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory

Abstract

Exoplanet observations have been performed on the automated Pulkovo Observatory telescopes. We have obtained 33 transit light curves for 16 known exoplanets and six transit observations for three exoplanet candidates discovered by the Kepler telescope. Based on our observations, we have reliably confirmed the existence of an exoplanet with an extremely large radius, R pl = 1.83 ± 0.16R Jup , in the system KOI 256 and detected a strong deviation of its orbital revolution from the theoretically predicted one. During the transit of the exoplanet WASP-12b across the stellar disk, we detected bursts that could be caused by the planet transit across spots on the star or by the presence of a satellite around this exoplanet. We detected possible periodic variations in the duration of the exoplanet transit across the stellar disk with time for HAT-P-12b that could be caused by variations in orbital inclination. The transit duration and depth, the central transit time, and the radius and orbital inclination of the planet have been estimated. The equilibrium temperature and albedo have been estimated for several exoplanets.

Ground-based near-UV observations of 15 transiting exoplanets: constraints on their atmospheres and no evidence for asymmetrical transits

“…WASP-12b is a hot Jupiter orbiting a G0 star with a short orbital period (Hebb et al 2009). There have been extensive photometric and spectroscopic studies of WASP-12b (López-Morales et al 2010;Maciejewski et al 2011Maciejewski et al , 2013Campo et al 2011;Croll et al 2011;Madhusudhan et al 2011;Husnoo et al 2011;Cowan et al 2012;Crossfield, Hansen & Barman 2012;Haswell et al 2012;Sokov et al 2012;Southworth et al 2012b;Sada et al 2012;Zhao et al 2012;Bechter et al 2014;Copperwheat et al 2013;Crossfield et al 2013;Föhring et al 2013;Fossati et al 2013;Mandell et al 2013;Sing et al 2013;Swain et al 2013;Teske et al 2014;Stevenson et al 2014b;Stevenson et al 2014a;;Croll et al 2015;Burton et al 2015;Kreidberg et al 2015;Collins, Kielkopf & Stassun 2015). WASP-12 is a triple star system with a binary M dwarf system in orbit around the G0 star (Crossfield, Hansen & Barman 2012;Bergfors et al 2013;Bechter et al 2014).…”

“…There have been extensive photometric and spectroscopic studies of WASP-12b (López-Morales et al 2010;Campo et al 2011;Chan et al 2011;Croll et al 2011;Husnoo et al 2011;Maciejewski et al 2011Maciejewski et al , 2013Madhusudhan et al 2011;Cowan et al 2012;Crossfield, Hansen & Barman 2012;Haswell et al 2012;Sada et al 2012;Sokov et al 2012;Southworth et al 2012b;Zhao et al 2012;Copperwheat et al 2013;Crossfield et al 2013;Föhring et al 2013;Fossati et al 2013;Mandell et al 2013;Sing et al 2013;Swain et al 2013;Bechter et al 2014 Table 14. Physical properties of WASP-12b, WASP-33b, WASP-36b, WASP-44b, WASP-48b, and WASP-77Ab derived from the light-curve modelling.…”