2006/02/28 by Michael Endl, William D. Cochran, Robert A. Wittenmyer +1 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/503746
published as Astron.J.131:3131-3134,2006 · 9 pages preprint, 4 figures, accepted in AJ
arxiv created 2006/02/28 · openalex publication_date 2006/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We present precise radial velocity data for the metal-rich star HD 45350 collected with the Harlan J. Smith (HJS) 2.7 m telescope and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory. This star was noticed by us as a candidate for having a giant planetary companion in a highly eccentric orbit, but the lack of data close to periastron left the amplitude and thus the mass of the planet poorly constrained. Marcy et al. (2005) announced the presence of the planet based on their Keck HIRES data, but those authors also cautioned that the remaining uncertainties in the orbital solution might be large due to insufficient data near periastron passage. In order to close this phase gap we exploited the flexible queue-scheduled observing mode of the HET to obtain intensive coverage of the most recent periastron passage of the planet. In combination with the long-term data from the HJS 2.7 m telescope we determine a Keplerian orbital solution for this system with a period of 962 days, an eccentricity of e = 0.76, and a velocity semiamplitude K of 57.4 m s -1 . The planet has a minimum mass of m sin i = 1.82 M J ± 0.14 M J and an orbital semimajor axis of a = 1.92 ± 0.07 AU.