2002/08/31 by Joshua Pepper, Andrew Gould, D. L. Depoy
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph
published as Acta Astron., 53, 213. (2003) · Published version, with revisions due to reviewer suggestions, 19 pages including 2 figures
arxiv created 2003/12/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Transits of bright stars offer a unique opportunity to study detailed properties of extrasolar planets that cannot be determined through radial-velocity observations. We propose a new technique to find such systems using all-sky small-aperture transit surveys. We derive a general formula for the number of stars that can be probed for such systems as a function of the characteristics of the star, the planet, and the survey. We use this formula to derive the optimal telescope design for finding transits of bright stars: a 5 cm ``telescope'' with a 4k x 4k camera.