Look up and let the stars lift your spirits AND exoplanet targets for Unistellar eVscope users!

Dear Cosmic Diary guests and Unistellar eVscope users,

My heart and best wishes go out to you and to your families during the COVID-19 global crisis. I have been very busy adjusting to this new way of life in quarantine and social distancing to do my part in “flattening the curve” and staying safe, as I’m sure many of you also have.

In addition to being a PhD student, I also teach high school physics full-time and my school in the Bay Area, CA, closed down for the pandemic on Friday, March 13. My teacher colleagues and I began teaching completely online beginning the following Tuesday (March 17). This has been a huge adjustment and learning curve for both me and my students, but I am proud of my school and fellow teachers for working so hard at my school and across the world to continue teaching via virtual online instruction and holding classes alongside all that is going on.

I have heard that other schools that have closed have not been so lucky and are not offering any sort of online education. I also know that there are still many schools that have remained open despite scientific evidence (and common sense) that closing schools during a pandemic saves lives and slows the spread of a virus (see this Science Magazine article, or this article from National Institutes of Health, or this Nature article, etc.). My school was fortunate to be one of many schools to proactively close and to offer online education for our students. I encourage other schools and teachers to do the best they can to keep students engaged and learning virtually online during this time as it is in all of our best interest. There is much to learn from this historic time and staying busy is good for your mental health and wellbeing, but please do it safely and in accordance to CDC and WHO guidelines.

Note: I made these slides, Mr. Peluso’s COVID-19 Science, Information, and Inspiration Slides, for my students, but they have been picked up by many educators across the world. Maybe you will also find them educational and inspirational. Please be encouraged to use them yourself and share.

I would like to offer some inspiration for all of you, and for those of you with a Unistellar eVscope some work to keep you busy. The stars shine upon us constantly. This occurs when things are great and not so great, but they are a reminder that we live in a beautiful vast universe of a trillion billion plus stars with countless planets, and that we live on our own corner of this possibly infinite universe together on a small pale blue dot, together.

The stars are a reminder of our mortality, but also our commonality. The air we breathe, the elements that we are constructed with (even our current common enemy, COVID-19) all come from the same raw materials once forged in the heart of stars since past that have exploded to yield their creation, which then formed other stars, planets, and on at least one of them, us.

So take a look up at the stars on the next clear night alone or with a loved one and enjoy some silence and think about this. In addition, if you own a Unistellar eVscope and want to stay busy and help me and my team find some exoplanets with this new and exciting citizen science instrument, then please read on and stay tuned for more exoplanet targets in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Dan Peluso

Background Information (skip to the observing directions, if you’ve seen this before)

*Note: The observing directions have been very recently updated to improve upon our ability to collect better exoplanet data so please be sure to review them carefully before your session.  

If you have not seen my previous posts on this topic, my name is Dan Peluso and I am doing my PhD in astrophysics with Franck Marchis (astronomer at the SETI Institute) and as a portion of my research I want to see if it is possible for any astronomy enthusiast around the world to coordinate with planet hunting scientists like us to help contribute to the search for planets around other stars (a.k.a. exoplanets).

Currently, one of the best planet hunting missions in operations is NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (a.k.a. TESS). Although NASA’s TESS is an amazing instrument, it still needs help in confirming and gathering additional data on the exoplanets it is attempting to observe. This is where YOU come in!

Exoplanet searches usually require elaborate setups, lots of study, maybe a fancy degree, and a sky mostly free of light pollution. With new technologies, such as with the new Unistellar eVscope and the citizen science network we are developing in coordination with the SETI Institute that is no longer the case!

Check out the article, Unistellar Consumer Telescope Will Help Astronomers Probe Exoplanets.

The Unistellar eVscope has already proven its capabilities to observe the transit of an exoplanet (see image 1 below).

Image 1: Transit light curve of WASP-43b. Observed with one Unistellar eVscope in March 2019 by Emmanuel Arbouch.

However, now we want to experiment with the possibilities of many eVscope users observing the same exoplanet and at the same time! Additionally, what will combining the data from many eVscopes do in helping us to learn more about these distant worlds? Can you and your eVscope help NASA TESS and other exoplanet scientists better understand these distant worlds? Ready to find out? I am! If you are too, then please read on for directions and details.

Unistellar eVscope Exoplanet Observing Directions Using Occultation Mode

1. Review the suggested exoplanet transit observations below. Pick the most convenient target for you based on your location, but keep in mind your local weather may affect your observing ability.
2. To make sure that there is enough space on your eVscope to collect data, download any previous data on your phone, then connect to your WiFi and upload it to our server. To do this, click on “User”, then after it loads, click on “DOWNLOAD DATA”. Wait for it to finish and you will not want to use your phone while this downloads. After it downloads to phone, disconnect phone from eVscope, turn off eVscope, and connect your phone to your home high-speed WiFi network. Now select “UPLOAD DATA”.
3. Make sure to charge your eVscope so it has enough charge for a roughly 4 hour observation.
4. Set up about 20-30 minutes before the observation start time. It is important that you uncap your telescope at least 10 minutes before an important observation so that the mirror can reach equilibrium (this improves image quality and stability).
5. After you connect to your eVscope point at some bright stars and focus and then auto-align. Make sure it says alignment is successful
6. After alignment, go to the “Science” menu, then click on and select “Asteroid occultations”
7. At the top of the Asteroid occultations page, in the Target fields, enter your Ra and Dec (listed below for each target). Double check your numbers and then hit the GoTo button
8. While your eVscope is finding the target, click on the eVscope menu to watch the telescope find the target. The app will alert you when it is done finding the target with the text “Goto finished”
9. Take a screen shot of the field of view (FOV) and take note how the stars look on the screen. You’ll need to check the FOV every 30 minutes during the observation to make sure our target is still centered.
10. After the eVscope finds your target (Goto finished), and you take note about your FOV, go back to the “Science” menu
11. TAKE DARKS: In the “Recording” fields, change the “Exposure time” to “3900” and your “Gain” to “30”. A few minutes before you observe put the lens cap back onto the eVscope to take darks. Set the “Duration” to “02min 00s” (2 minutes). Press the “LAUNCH” button to record your darks.
12. Remove the lens cap after 2 minutes has passed and the recording has finished
13. Change the “Duration” to “30min 00s” (30 minutes) and make sure your exposure and gain settings are the same.
14. Press the “LAUNCH” button to begin recording your exoplanet target at the designated start time for your target (below). Set a timer on your watch or watch the clock to remind you come back 30 minutes later.
15. After the 30 minute recording has finished, check your FOV. Does it look very similar to the FOV you began with? If so, then make sure your settings are the same (exposure—3900, gain—30, duration—30min), and click on “LAUNCH” again.
    • If and only if the FOV looks slightly off, then repeat the “Goto” process again with your Ra and Dec. This shouldn’t take as long the second time around. After that finishes, check your settings as stated in step 15 here and click on “LAUNCH” for another 30 minute recording.
16. Repeat steps 13-15 until your observation time ends. Note that you may have to adjust the time of your last block of recording based off of how much time is left towards the end. It is okay to set your duration a bit shorter or longer than 30 minutes for the last one.
17. TAKE DARKS AGAIN: In the “Recording” fields, make sure the settings are the same. “Exposure time” to “3900” and your “Gain” to “30”. Put the lens cap back onto the eVscope to take your darks. Set the “Duration” to “02min 00s” (2 minutes). Press the “LAUNCH” button to record your darks.
18. After your darks, you are done!
19. Park your eVscope, turn it off, and celebrate because you are officially an exoplanet hunter!
20. Send us the data by downloading the data on your phone, then connecting to your wifi and uploading it to our server (I recommend sending the data to our server while you sleep, so if you’re going to bed soon, it wouldn’t hurt to have this run while you sleep. Step 2 has details on how to do this.
21. Contact us by email at citizenscience@unistellaroptics.com to inform us that you observed. In your email, include the following:
    • Your name
    • Observing location
    • Target you observed
    • The local time when you took your dark frames
    • Any important notes about the observation (e.g. it was really windy, some clouds, etc.)
    • The eVscope SSID of your eVscope. This is the same letter/number code that appears on your phone when you are selecting your eVscope to connect to your phone via its broadcasted WiFi signal and can also be found in the “User” menu in the box at the top titled “SSID”. E.g. eVscope-abc1d2.

Contact us by email at citizenscience@unistellaroptics.com if you have any questions and to let us know that you observed.

USA Target: Best viewed from western United States, but possible in the east. 
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Exoplanet Observation Details –> TESS Target, TOI 656.01

Date of observation:

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Observation Start/End Time: 

8:29 pm – 11:28 pm, Pacific Standard Time

*Hey, guess what? You don’t even have to be with your eVscope this entire time! I’ve done observations this long and after setting up went inside to catch up on my favorite show or enjoyed some reading.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE CHECK THE WEATHER so if you leave your eVscope out it is not damaged by rain/snow!!!

Target:

Celestial Coordinates:

Right Ascension (RA) –> 10:19:37.96
Declination (Dec) –> -09:48:23.2

*Don’t forget the “-” sign for your Dec.

This is our new science goal for my PhD to use Unistellar eVscopes to find Baby Yoda! Lucasfilm/Walt Disney Pictures via Disney+