Announcing the SPADES Exoplanet Search Project

[drsimmo (Simon)]

Hi everyone,

We are pleased to announce that the SPADES pro-am project (Search for Planets Around Detached Eclipsing Systems) is now up and running. We seek observers immediately to join the team. Basic requirements are a telescope of about 30 cm aperture or more, an astronomical CCD camera with a Johnson V filter, and experience in CCD photometry. Targets are all south of +10 deg declination.

You can find out more on the SPADES web pages, at our website www.variablestarssouth.org, by going to the "Research Projects" menu. This contains a project description including the science case, observational requirements, contact emails, and initial list of targets.

We look forward to hearing from you!
Regards
Simon O'Toole (Australian Astronomical Observatory)
Tom Richards (Variable Stars South)

[renormalised (Carl)]

Great project to be involved in!!!!

Don't have a camera, unfortunately. Let's hope you find exoplanets in "spades"

[drsimmo (Simon)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Great project to be involved in!!!!

Don't have a camera, unfortunately. Let's hope you find exoplanets in "spades"

Thanks!

And the acronym does lend itself to nice headlines!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by drsimmo

Thanks!

And the acronym does lend itself to nice headlines!

Yep

Reporter: "How many planets have you found??"

Astronomer: "We've found planets in spades, literally. We keep digging them out of the data at a rate of knots"