The Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project

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SUMMARY

The Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project is a collaborative initiative involving over 20 observatories across five continents, aimed at discovering potentially habitable exoplanets around non-flare G, K, and M-type stars within 100 light years. The project focuses on stars with known transiting exoplanets, monitoring them continuously to increase the likelihood of finding new candidates. Currently, only 10 non-flare stars within this range have been identified, with the potential to discover around 25 habitable exoplanets based on transit probabilities. CCD cameras with a minimum resolution of 16 bits are recommended for effective monitoring.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of exoplanet transits and their significance
  • Familiarity with G, K, and M-type stars
  • Knowledge of CCD camera specifications and their applications in astronomy
  • Basic principles of astronomical observation techniques
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the methods for detecting exoplanets using transit photometry
  • Explore the characteristics of non-flare G, K, and M-type stars
  • Learn about the latest advancements in CCD camera technology for astronomy
  • Investigate the significance of habitable zones around stars
USEFUL FOR

Astronomers, astrophysics students, amateur astronomers, and anyone interested in the search for habitable exoplanets and the methodologies involved in astronomical observations.

alberto91
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TL;DR
A worldwide network of amateur astronomers searching for new potentially habitable exoplanets.
Hi all!

We are looking for more observatories and amateur astronomers who might want to join the project.

The Habitable Exoplanet Hunting Project is a worldwide network of amateur astronomers searching for new potentially habitable exoplanets. I am coordinating over 20 observatories located in 5 continents.

We are searching for habitable exoplanets around non-flare G, K and M-type stars located within 100 ly.

The stars we are monitoring already have known transiting exoplanets, but none of them are potentially habitable.

We are monitoring each star 24/7 for several months. By doing so, we believe that the chances of finding an exoplanet increase for particular targets. Moreover, we are focusing on stars closer than 100 light years because, on the one hand, the closest habitable exoplanets will be the first destinations of interstellar missions and, on the other, because very few nearby habitable exoplanets around G and K-type stars have been discovered: only 2 of them.

The number of potentially habitable exoplanets that we could discover is, in theory, around 25. This calculation was obtained by taking into account the number of non-flare stars within 100 light years and the percentage of them that should show transits in the habitable zone.

Each observatory observes the same star and, when the transit of a hypothetical habitable exoplanet becomes unlikely, we move to another star.

Within 100 light years, we only found 10 non-flare G, K and M-type stars with known transiting exoplanets not potentially habitable.

Big telescopes are not necessary, but CCD cameras with a resolution of at least 16 bits are advisable because we are searching for exoplanets that produce a change of brightness in the star of around 0.1%.

If you are interested, feel free to contact me.

More info: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7gEaewOws&feature=youtu.be
 
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Anybody interested?

I was recently interviewed by Tony Darnell from Deep Astronomy:

 

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