Studies of Exoplanets with Candidate TOI 717.01 and Confirmed HAT-P-3b

TL;DR

This study observed and analyzed exoplanets TOI 717.01 and HAT-P-3b using ground-based telescopes, revealing transit timing discrepancies and challenges in detecting low-depth transits, with implications for exoplanet characterization.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates the application of multiple photometric algorithms and software to observe and analyze exoplanet transits, highlighting issues in transit detection and timing accuracy.

Findings

HAT-P-3b transit midpoint was 20.2 minutes off from expected.

TOI 717.01 transit was not detected, likely due to low transit depth.

Potential variability in comparison stars may affect transit detection.

Abstract

Images of the exoplanets TOI 717.01, Qatar-8 b, and HAT-P-3 b were requested in the w-filter from the Las Cumbres Observatory 0.4-meter telescopes. Of these requests, images were taken of TOI 717.01 and HAT-P-3b and were reduced using the EXOplanet Transit Interpretation Code (EXOTIC) software, as well as 6 photometric algorithms from the Our Solar Siblings pipeline. The transit midpoint for HAT-P-3 b was found to be 2458907.6205, which is 20.2 minutes different from its expected midpoint that night. For TOI 717.01, the transit was not discernible, likely due to its low transit depth of 0.1%. It is possible that one of the comparison stars in the TOI 717.01 field is variable.