KOR

e-Article

Observations of extrasolar planet transits with the automated telescopes of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory.
Document Type
Article
Source
Astronomy Letters. Mar2012, Vol. 38 Issue 3, p180-190. 11p. 4 Charts, 8 Graphs.
Subject
*EXTRASOLAR planets
*ASTRONOMICAL transits
*TELESCOPES
*ASTRONOMICAL observatories
*LIGHT curves
*DISKS (Astrophysics)
*ORBITAL mechanics
*TEMPERATURE effect
Language
ISSN
1063-7737
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 = 1.83 ± 0.16 R, 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]