Co-Discovery of exoplanet KELT-7b

2015-01-23
This is my second published co-discovery of my collaboration with the Kelt-North Follow-up team.

List of names involved in the discovery

Kelt-7 (HD33643) finder chart made using Skychart - Constelation AURIGA

Kelt-7_b orbits a bright V=8.54 HD33643 F-star in the constelation AURIGA
Exoplanet data:
Mass : 1.28 Jupiter mass
Radius: 1.53 Jupiter radius
Ra: 05 13 10.93
Dec:+33 19 05.40

Kelt-North survey camera (telescope) @ Winer Obs in Arizona, field of view 26ºx26º (image credit KELT)

Kelt-7_b started its life as a candidate after analysis of data collected by Kelt-North exoplanet survey field 04 and included in a candidates list among other starts that showed periodic dip in the lightcurve.
I've chosen to observe this candidate and make it a target for the night after a quick analysis of the best object to be observed considering its priority and favorable position in the sky to capture the full event.

Observability analysis of the target

B-V chart for Kelt-7 field

The observation session lasted for aprox 5h and 180 images of 90s each for time sequence were taken.
Camera temperature was set to -20ºC, a V-band filter was used.
After processing the images in preparation for analysis, photometry was performed to look for the predicted event.

Transit signature with model fit of exoplanet Kelt-7_b

Luckily for this target the transit showed up nicely as predicted as you can see in the previous image.
The plot is impressive for a small telescope and I recall the high clouds present that night.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.05565v1.pdf