Find the planet! Transit Photometry of Known Exoplanets

Professor: Chris Theissen

Description: You will analyze data taken with the Direct Imaging Camera on the Nickel 40-inch telescope at Lick Observatory of the transit of the known planets. You will learn the basics of high precision photometry and transit photometry, data reduction, and statistical techniques to identify the transit signal. If time permits, you will use advanced statistical techniques to attempt to find the signal in very noisy data. Students will also be able to join in observing runs to get new transit data.

Preferred Qualifications: Python experience would be ideal, but not required. If they know how to use GitHub that would be amazing. Basic astronomy knowledge would be useful, but is not required. Remote research is not ideal for this project.