Digital Exoplanet Hunting Observatory

Discovery of an exoplanet was the first leap toward planet hunting. From the day the first exoplanet was discovered revolving around its host star, a new field of astronomy came into being.  Since then this field has achieved heights of success by observing 530,506 stars and discovered more tha

Project Title

Digital Exoplanet Hunting Observatory

Project Area of Specialization

Robotics

Project Summary

Discovery of an exoplanet was the first leap toward planet hunting. From the day the first exoplanet was discovered revolving around its host star, a new field of astronomy came into being.  Since then this field has achieved heights of success by observing 530,506 stars and discovered more than 2,662 Exoplanets. During recent years, the hunt for exoplanets has become more crucial than ever but, usage of CCD based observatories are making this project expensive. With the replacement of DSLR`s with CCD`s for Aperture, photometry will improve the project efficiency with respect to cost & time. This combination of DSLR with automated data processing software will help astronomers to detect hot Jupiter’s orbiting around stars. This project will consist of a remote observatory accessible by software. This software will be able to calibrate observatory towards a target star and will capture long exposure shots of the selected field of stars. After retrieval of raw data, the software will calculate the light intensity of star from images and will plot a graph with respect to time. DIP`s in this graph will predict either the star hosts any exoplanet or not. This Project will not only help collect astronomical data regarding stellar bodies but, also will provide an economical solution for educational institute’s as well as amateur astronomers.

Keywords:

•             CCD (Charge-Coupled Device)

•             Exoplanet (Extra-Solar Planet)

•             DIP (Drop in Intensity of light)

•             DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex Camera)

Project Objectives

1. To design an automated observatory based on DSLR camera instead of CCD devices.
2. To study the properties of different stellar bodies.
3. To collect data of stars i.e. light Intensity, Spectrum, Median, Magnitude, etc. using Aperture Photometry.
4. To Detect Extra-Solar Planets Revolving around different stars.
5. To increase the cost efficiency of digital observatories.
6. To provide an affordable alternative to expensive CCD based observatories for institutes of developing countries.
7. Help amateur astronomers to study astronomy.

Project Implementation Method

This Observatory will be divided into 2 sections:

1. Hardware:

                           The hardware part will consist of a DSLR Camera, Tripod, Arduino Uno and Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi will be used to control the flow of command and data between user and camera. Raspberry Pi once triggered by the user to start collecting information will send signals to Arduino and Camera to collect data and send data to the user after completion of the process. Arduino Uno will be used to create a device called star tracker. It will rotate the camera with the rotation of the earth in order to keep the images sharp. It is also the most crucial part of the observatory since without it the observatory will move out of the designated position and will lose accuracy. The DSLR camera will come top of the star tracker that will capture the long exposure shots of the selected field of stars in raw format. These images will be saved into camera memory and later sent to the user for data processing.

2. Software:

                         Software section will consist of software that will be used to control the observatory. This software will be Java-based software that will use Python libraries to calculate mathematical data. This software will be able to remote access the observatory, calibrate the observatory toward target star and trigger the capture function. This software will also be able to process the captured data by the observatory. This software will perform aperture Photometry on the collected images of the star and will plot a graph to determine either the star host any planet or not.

This project will be implemented into 2 phase:

1. Extraction Phase: Upon triggering the Capture function the observatory will perform observations of a selected region of stars and will capture long exposure shots. These Images will be sent to the user for data manipulation.

2. Manipulation Phase: Once received by the user these raw images will be first converted into .Fits format by using the software. Then this .Fits will be loaded back into software and the software will calculate astronomical data from these images such as Julian date, light intensity, magnitude, etc. after gathering useful data the software will plot a graph with respect to time and light intensity. The dips in this graph will determine either the star host any planet or not and its characteristics such as the size of the planet

Benefits of the Project

This project will help users to cut down the cost of observatories by less than $10000s per square meter square degree for our system since conventional observatories are quite expensive as compared to DSLR based observatory. This observatory will also provide an easy approach toward the study of exoplanet since, Photometry is a difficult job to do precisely but, with the help of automated system controlled by software from a remote location, it will reduce the hassle. The DSLR based observatory will also be easy to deploy rather than CCD based observatory since it does not require external filters to study the stellar objects. This observatory will also be operatable from a remote location making it easy to use for anyone with access to the software. This observatory will also be able to study different stellar bodies other than stars such as meteoroids, comets, planets in our solar system and sun`s atmosphere.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

This Observatory will be designed and implemented based on hardware and software using a computer-based application and multiple hardware components. The hardware consisting of microcontrollers such as Arduino Uno and Raspberry Pi 3 will be used alongside a DSLR camera. The software will be Java-based computer application that will use core functions such as calculation in python. These 2 components will combine to provide a robust and automated observatory capable of discovering Jupiter sized exoplanets revolving around different stars. The user using the observatory will be provided raw data that will be later converted into useful data capable of determining the nature of star and planets revolving around it as a result. Rest of the internal working and user interaction is discussed briefly in the Project Implementation section.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Type of Industry

IT , Others

Technologies

Robotics, Others

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com