ABSTRACT

A typical transit curve characterized by a very fast small drop in flux as the planet crosses in front of the star that extends for the period of time that the exoplanet partially occludes the host star. The transit dip is the biggest indicator that an exoplanet has crossed in front of a star. Long-exposure imaging, exoplanet photometry is more challenging because the flux variation from the bottom to the top of a transit curve is usually 0.2% or less. Long-exposure imaging, photometry requires one to be very careful about the quality of the captured data. An image of a galaxy or nebula can be enhanced by taking many hours of images, to increase the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) to 8/10 or better. The process that calibrates registers and integrates multiple images to produce a single image with a high SNR is not appropriate for exoplanet observing, as the host star's flux will be varying second by second.