All Sky Survey For Planet Detection By Transits

Deeg, H. J.
Bibliographical reference

EGS XXVII General Assembly, Nice, 21-26 April 2002, abstract #4519

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2002
Number of authors
1
IAC number of authors
1
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0
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0
Description
PASS, the Permanent All Sky Survey is a project to survey the entire visible sky for the presence of transits by extrasolar planets. The instrument would consist of one or two fixed arrays of wide-angle cameras, that would permanently take images of the entire visible sky more then 30 deg above horizon. A design sutdy consisting of 15 cameras in each array, with optics based on SLR camera lenses is presented. Simulations of the camera system show that the brightness limit for transit detections of giant planets will be 10th-11th magnitude. One such instrument located around 30 deg N should allow the surveying of about 150 000 stars, with a southern declination limit of 18 deg. With the addition of a similar instrument in the opposite hemisphere, a coverage of the entire sky can be obtained (250 000 stars), and coverage is relatively uniform over all declinations. The result would be a complete catalog of all transiting giant planets around bright stars, with an estimated 120 planet detections. The sample stars' high brightness would make transits detected by PASS the best suited ones for follow-up studies from ground and space missions.