ASTEP: Towards the detection and characterization of exoplanets from Dome C

• Main Authors: Rauer H., Blazit A., Valbousquet F., Schmider F.-X., Gouvret C., Fressin F., Fanteï-Caujolle Y., Rivet J.-P., Mekarnia D., Abe L., Daban J.-B., Agabi K., Guillot T., Crouzet N., Erikson A., Fruth T., Aigrain S., Pont F., Barbieri M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2011-02-01
• Series: EPJ Web of Conferences
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20101106001

The ASTEP project (Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets), aims at testing the quality of the Dome C site in Antarctica for photometry in the visible, as well as detecting and characterizing transiting exoplanets. A dedicated telescope, ASTEP400, has been developped and installed at Concordia. The first campaign took place during the winter 2010, and the telescope functionned nominally during all the winter. A first analysis of the data leads to a precision of 189 and 205 ppm for WASP-19 and WASP-18 respectively, for continuous observations during 1 month. This shows that extremely high precision photometry is achievable from Dome C.