I am working with a small group of students at Hamline University on observing an exoplanet using transit photometry.
Right now, our group is working on buying equipment. The school already has Celestron C-8 telescopes with motorized mounts available for us to use, but we don't have a camera. We need a camera that we can use to take a long-exposure photograph of a single star, and it needs to be able to measure the brightness of the star very accurately.
Our budget is about $1,000, but the cheaper the better. So far, the only camera under $1,000 I have found that might work is the Atik Titan. One person I asked about this camera said that the anti-blooming technology might cause problems, and that the chip in the Atik Titan is too small. This person proposed the ST-402ME as a better model, but it costs $1,500.
Does anyone know either of these cameras would be sufficient for our project? Is it worth the extra money to buy the ST-402? Or do you have any other recommendations?
Many thanks in advance for any help!
http://www.highpointscientific.com/atik-titan-monochrome-ccd-camera-w-sony-icx424-sensor-atk0072?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse&utm_term=ATK-ATK0072&gclid=CNvc0eTQ4cECFbHm7Aod6mEAlA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_detecting_exoplanets#Transit_photometry
https://www.sbig.com/products/cameras/st-compact/st-402me/
Hi Cy Butler,
I think that the best way would be to use DSLR camera. Digital SLR are excellent for such projects because they have very large chip. DSLR have anti-bloming and it does not cause problems. Many astronomers used DSLR for detecting exoplanet transit.
The key is to measure magnitude of a star with accuracy below 0.001 magnitude.
This accuracy can be received for aperture D=20 cm (Celestron C-8 telescope), assuming zenith distance z=20 degrees, elevation 100 m, and exposure time 120 second. The RMS error in magnitude due to scintillation is equal to 0.00087 mag
A large size of chip is better, because you may find more comparison stars with the error less than 0.01 mag
Dear Cy Butler,
I suggest you should go in touch with our (IOTA/ES) camera expert Wolfgang Beisker.
You can send a mail to [email protected]. He has done many investigation of cameras for occultation work.
all the best
Konrad
Dear Cy Butler,
we use the starlight xpress trius-SX9 for the variable stars lightcurves and we am very satisfied even if it is antiblooming.
we have never tried this camera on the transitis of exoplanets.
Best regards
Ulisse
I always used SBIG ST cameras. ST7 and ST8. I'm pretty sure you can find them as used with a good price (ST7 for sure). With these cameras I achieved great precision (better than 0.002) with a C9.25 at f/10. You can see in my blog (http://fsalvaggio.blogspot.com translate it and go in exoplanet category) and in some paper I published.
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