CIELO PROFUNDO. An observing journal by Juanjo González

All exoplanet articles

Exoplanet WASP-33b

Published: 2010-10-23 (not a capture date). Original article on Cielo Profundo.

Observation details: d3c0f65328a12a94-data1.gif

Capture date
Capture date unknown
Distance to the Earth
≈ 396.6 light-years (Catalogue distance)

Light-curve graph for Exoplanet WASP-33b

This is another attempt to capture, with our telescope, the motion of an extrasolar planet as it passes in front of the star in its planetary system. In this case it is exoplanet WASP-33b.

The planet is a gas giant with 4 times Jupiter's mass, completing an orbit around its star in 1.22 days. Its host star has 1.5 times our Sun's mass, and the entire planetary system is 377 light-years away.

Studying this exoplanet is very interesting because the light curve produced during the transit is far from uniform. This could mean many things, from the presence of moons around the planet to the possibility that the star has patches of different brightness on its surface.

The result was not good because a series of high clouds spoiled the first hours of observation. Differential photometry is very sensitive to any change in brightness in the image, especially the gradients produced by clouds. Even so, the transit is clearly visible, and the quality of its final portion is more than acceptable.

Supporting image for Exoplanet WASP-33b

English archive record (JSON)