EPJ Web of Conferences (Feb 2011)

ASTEP: Towards the detection and characterization of exoplanets from Dome C

  • Rauer H.,
  • Blazit A.,
  • Valbousquet F.,
  • Schmider F.-X.,
  • Gouvret C.,
  • Fressin F.,
  • Fanteï-Caujolle Y.,
  • Rivet J.-P.,
  • Mekarnia D.,
  • Abe L.,
  • Daban J.-B.,
  • Agabi K.,
  • Guillot T.,
  • Crouzet N.,
  • Erikson A.,
  • Fruth T.,
  • Aigrain S.,
  • Pont F.,
  • Barbieri M.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20101106001
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11
p. 06001

Abstract

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The ASTEP project (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets), aims at testing the quality of the Dome C site in Antarctica for photometry in the visible, as well as detecting and characterizing transiting exoplanets. A dedicated telescope, ASTEP400, has been developped and installed at Concordia. The first campaign took place during the winter 2010, and the telescope functionned nominally during all the winter. A first analysis of the data leads to a precision of 189 and 205 ppm for WASP-19 and WASP-18 respectively, for continuous observations during 1 month. This shows that extremely high precision photometry is achievable from Dome C.