Planet Hunter - Jennie McCormick

[moondog]

Just come back from a talk about planet hunting by Jennie McCormick at the local Institute of Technology here in Nelson New Zealand. Really enjoyed the talk - lots of pics. Jennie gave a great explanation of gravitational lensing which she uses to enable her to find extra solar planets with her 14ins Meade SCT and astro camera. The explanation involved a wine glass and a light bulb! The following flyer for the talk gives all the necessary details :-

You are invited to an evening in the company of an invited speaker Jennie McCormick , the first amateur woman astronomer to co-discover a new planet , at a meeting of the Astronomical Section of the Nelson Science Society on

" All in a Days Work - Research Astronomy the Amateur Way"

at 7:30pm on Thursday March 5 ( this Thursday) at the NMIT A211 lecture theatre (Entry from parking behind building - 322 Hardy Street on the corner of Hardy and Alton streets)

It is not too difficult to find a planet especially if you have the appropriate equipment and plenty of Milky Way road maps to show the way ; but unlike many professional astronomers who sleep during the day and work at night, amateurs must juggle their routine daily life with their nocturnal habits in an attempt to discover new worlds many thousands of light years away.

How is it done, what is involved and why do it?

This presentation is a light hearted pictorial look at what it takes to be involved in and make important scientific planetary discoveries from a backyard observatory in the middle of a large city.

Jennie McCormick

Born and breed in Wanganui City, Jennie moved to Auckland when she was 15 years old. Along the way she left school, rode racehorses, married and had two sons. In her early 30’s she joined the Auckland Astronomical Society, bought a telescope and spent every evening exploring the night sky

In 1999 she built Farm Cove Observatory, an astronomical research observatory in Pakuranga, Auckland funded by Ohio State and Colombia Universities in the United States. In 2005 she became the first amateur woman astronomer, since William Hershel discovered Uranus in 1781, to co discover a new planet named OGLG-2005-BLG-071 orbiting a distant star towards the center of the Milky Way galaxy and since then has co-discovered several more, including the first analogy of our solar system, OGLE-2006-BLG-109L.

Jennie has been a long time member of the Auckland Astronomical Society and is sits on the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand Council as an Affiliated Society Representative. In 2005 Jennie was awarded the MNZM (Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit) for services to New Zealand Astronomy.At present she is on contract to the International Astronomical Union and Astronomers without Borders coordinating the largest of the 11 International Year of Astronomy Cornerstone Projects, 100 Hours of Astronomy.

MD

[MeerkatinBKK]

Sounds like a fascinating talk. It's pretty mindblowing to think that she could help to discover other planets with only an amateur 'scope (OK a fairly large one compared to mine, but still...)

I think that's one of the great reasons to be in this hobby; amateurs can and routinely do a lot of serious astronomy that the professionals simply don't have time to do themselves. Recording variable stars, discovering new comets and meteors, projects like Galaxy Zoo, and now discovering exoplanets. Truly incredible!

[Sam]

Wow! I didn't realise you could do that sort of work with a backyard scope (a big backyard scope!)

[RobH]

Never knew that a 14 inch could do that!

And I have one!!!

Rob

[moondog]

Sam & Rob - I didn't know you could do this work with a 14 ins scope either. She actually started off with a 10 ins scope, if you can believe it!

Apparently there are institutions around the world who calculate star alignments that could create gravitational lensing. These times and co-ordinates are then e-mailed to astronomers who wish to carry out this research. This seems to involve taking several hundred 5 min or so images over several hours and up to a few days.

It's the slight disturbance of a series of light curves plotted from the image set that enables the planet to be detected. The light curves are then sent off to a research institute who analyse the results and calculate the size and orbit of the planet.

Fascinating stuff eh?

Why not give it a go Rob? - you've got the equipment!

MD

[RobH]

Hello MD.

The 14 is currently out of comission, waiting for a new obs to put it in, but I may well have a bash when it's up and running again.

Do you have any links related to this?

Cheers

Rob

[moondog]

Hi Rob

I haven't a direct link to the bodies that provide the co-ords for the stars.

I have the e-mail address of Jennie McCormick :-

farmcoveobs@xtra.co.nz

I have not e-mailed her myself but this address was in some more public domain publicity stuff given out at the time. So I think it would be OK to use. I spoke to her very briefly following her talk and she seemed to be very approachable

Here's a web link that seems to be what you're looking for. I haven't had time to check it out though. Hope this helps.

http://bustard.phys.nd.edu/MPS/

The light curves shown are typical of the ones Jennie showed.

MD

[RobH]

Thanks MD

[stefski]

Wow...I never thought you could do that with a 14" 'scope!