KOI 0183b my first exoplanet transit!!!

This observing night has been devoted to a difficult task.....
...me and my friend Maurizio Cervoni were planning an exoplanet session.....

 "...why not try do detect an exoplanet transit with our observatory telescope?...."

ATA Observatory (Associazione Tuscolana Astronomia) has a good Meade 14" ACF sc telescope
on a powerful 10Micron GM2000 QCI mount, we thought that it should be capable to detect the
faint light loss that occurs when a little planet transit in front of his star......

...we should only decide a target and then choose the right integration time....

ETD exoplanet transit database

The Czech Astronomical Socie7ty has a powerful site where observers can select exoplanet targets
given observing latitude and longitude and date....

Here is it....

....KOI 0183b has no transit data in their database, but Kepler observation gives it a good transit
prediction for this night....and the transit depth seems large enough to be detected with our system.

SBIG ST 8XE with its ST237 guider chip has good QE and sensibilty.....180 seconds give us a good
SNR value....now only take a lot of frame and wait...

It tooks 4.5h to get all data (one should get data 1h before and after the predicted transit time in
order to have enough data to process....)....but then processing begins....

The results are astonishing!!!!....here is the detected transit:

 this is residuals graph

 ....and these are the obj/reference/check stars used during the photometric processing...

The following image  summarize the observed transit data....

...look at the transit depth information:   0.0017674 +- 0.000788 magnitudes.....
...error is less then 1 mmag!!!!...

We have detect it!!!!.....we used the ETD site to model our transit data and then we sent them
the results in order to record the transit in ETD database....

Here is a link to our observing session: KOI0183b observation

M27

This summer-time object is a bit abused....but here is my personal one!!!!....

(click for full resolution)

5x600 sec. with Semi APO filter  - Bias - Dark - Flat  processing

Later on I captured some RGB frame (not so much....) and combining them....

  

(click for a larger image)

Seeing was not the best ( FWHM > 3") but it was only a test to verify that my old Eq6 with the TDM addition can guide a 2000mm 10" RC without problems....

Autoguide TEST

How long can my eq6 mount guide the RC at full focal?
Tonight It proved to be able to guide it for as long as 600 seconds...but it's not a limit!!!

Here is a full resolution (bin 1x1) image of a star field (I have not done a plate solve on it...)
that show perfect round stars on all the field of view....

(click for full resolution image)

Collimation is a bit off, focus too....but AO-LF and TDM are doing a beautiful work on my EQ6!!!
It seems that there is no limit on how long the eq6 can track the exposure, all I have to do is a good polar alignment when my optics are getting to temperature....
Good polar alignment it's a breeze using Astrotortilla and its Astrometry.net embedded plate solving engine. Astrotortilla's polar align wizard compute polar alignment error and gives you a measure of how much you have to 'adjust' your mount's azimuth/altitude knobs...

...it's time to get some nice images!!!!.....

Calibration frames

No clear sky so this night has been devoted to calibration frames acquisition for all my 2x2 bin images. Standard calibration requires bias, dark and flat reference image to clean up an image from noise and optical/geometrical artifacts.

A lot of bias (74 of them...) median stacked give this master bias frame:

(click to enlarge)

Master dark frame (median of 60 frames, -15 C, 60 seconds each...):

(click to enlarge)

Master flat frame (median of 90 frames) obtained using a 14" elettroluminescent flat panel:

(click to enlarge)

Some dust donuts.....smaller donuts are from the sensor window protection glass, larger ones are from the filters in the filter wheel.

Using those master frames should keep my images cleaner....I hope so!!!...

M10

Working on autoguide and correctly balancing my eq6, I tried this globular cluster.
It is a median combine of only 3 single 300 seconds exposure, central crop of the frame:

(click to enlarge)

Technical data: GSO 10" RC f/8 (2000mm) on Eq6 + TDM / CCD Sx H694 + 1"1/4 semi APO filter + Sx AO-LF + Lodestar autoguided

M3

Takahashi collimator is still in Japan!!!......so my RC collimation is not good....I'm trying to do my best using only the stars but it seems that is not enough!!!

This is a median sum of 12 x 180 second frames:

(click to enlarge)

Technical note: GSO 10" RC + Eq6 + TDM + Sx AOLF

I have to work harder!!!....the RC can give much better results.....