ParMagnus Observatory

ParMagnus-TFOP in the El Paso (USA)-Juárez (México) Borderplex region

Héctor Noriega-Mendoza, Physics Department (UTEP)

In August 2023 the ParMagnus Observatory, originally conceived as a joint demonstration project with SEArch+ Space Architecture to construct a small prototype 3D-printed astronomical observatory on the surface of a generic terrestrial world, became the first local observatory dedicated entirely to the search and characterization of extrasolar planets via the transit method.

Equipped with a Meade LX-600 ACF 12-inch telescope and a QHY183M (monochrome) camera, ParMagnus is now a member of the TESS Followup Observing Program (TFOP), a NASA/MIT project following up on candidate exoplanets in our galaxy first reported by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) using the transit method.

Left and right: The 12-inch ParMagnus telescope during the flat-field image acquisition process and initially pointing at a region in the surroundings of Cygnus, respectively. Center: Confirmation, from photometric data collected by ParMagnus on Aug. 5, 2023 of HAT-P-37b, a Jupiter-like planet orbiting the star HAT-P-37, 1340 light-years away from Earth. The central dip in light on the light curve of the star (green-dotted band) reveals a transiting (eclipsing) opaque object (a planet) in front of the star. This hot Jupiter orbits HAT-P-37 in 2.8 days and was discovered and first reported by Bakos et al. (2012) and the Hungarian Automated Telescope (HAT).

Image calibration and photometry of HAT-P-37 with AstroImageJ (AIJ) from data by Noriega-Mendoza (2023). The star (R.A.: 18:57:11, Dec: +51:16:09), V=13.4, is the second from the base of a small arrow-shaped asterism in Draco, and it was tracked for 3 hours on Aug. 5, 2023 by ParMagnus to confirm its light curve and the planet in orbit about it (a hot Jupiter simulated and rendered here through NASA's Eyes on Exoplanets).

The ParMagnus Exoplanet Group (Laberge, Pham, Ayala-Vilchis, Nuño and Noriega-Mendoza) during a differential photometry AIJ training session analyzing the star WASP-12 and its planetary companion from photometric data by Conti (2016) .

Dome-filtered optical observatory on Mars. Preliminary model by Héctor Noriega-Mendoza with DAZ Studio for the original proposal of a prototype 3D-printed observatory on the surface of a terrestrial world.