WASP-33b is an exoplanet in the constellation Andromeda, orbiting the star WASP-33, and is the first exoplanet I’ve (indirectly) photographed.
WASP-33b is a “hot jupiter” exoplanet, meaning it has a mass roughly 3 times that of Jupiter (while having only 1.5 times the radius), but orbits it’s star 20 times closer than Mercury orbits our sun. It is thus nowhere near habitable for life as we know it. It’s temperature is over 5,000 degrees F on average, and orbits it’s star once every 1.2 earth days. Measurements of it’s atmosphere via transmission spectroscopy revealed that it has an atmosphere containing titanium monoxide (TiO), water, as well as iron and silicon. The winds in the atmosphere also exceed 19,000 mph. Kind of a hellscape.
The second photo is the light curve I measured for this exoplanet. This is where the brightness of WASP-33 has been graphed out as a function of time. Dips in this graph indicate when the star’s brightness is significantly lower than average. The first half of this graph shows this characteristic bell-curve-like dip, although I seem to have missed the start of the transit (ingress). This was the very first time I’ve measured an exoplanet transit, so the data wasn’t exactly fantastic. I’m looking forward to measuring several more transits in the future though!
JML Astrophotos 