tutorials

Stellar signals and planet detection

In this mini-series Kassie and Nora talk about various stellar signals. How do the properties of a star affect the light curve that we see and how does this affect or ability to find planets?

Stars + planets 1: lightcurves across the HR diagram.

In this video Kassie and Nora discuss stars! Stars can be sorted according to their temperature (colour) and their brightness, giving us the HR diagram. The majority of stars can be found in a rough diagonal line across the HR diagram - this is called the main sequence. Stars spend the vast majority of their lives on this main sequence, where they generate energy by fusing hydrogen into helium. Once the stars have run out of hydrogen, they become brighter (as they get larger), and cooler, and therefore move towards the top right hand corner of the HR diagram. All stars move across the HR diagram throughout their lives - with their exact path depending on their initial mass. This means that we can use the HR dirgam to assess at what stage of its life a given star is.

Depending on where on the HR diagram a star lies can affect the lightcurve that we see. Watch this episode to find out more.

Click the logos below to open up the Colab notebook or to download the Jupyter notebook. These notebooks provide code to plot the HR diagram.

HR intro

Stars + planets 2: How can we detect exoplanets using transit time variations?

This week, we're learning about another method used to detect exoplanets, called transit time variations (TTVs).

ttv

Stars + planets 3: Guess the star 1 - What causes these interesting light curves?

Can you guess the light curve? Kassie and Nora discuss a number of unique light curve that you might have come across on Planet Hunters TESS. If you see a light curve that you want to know more about, send it our way and we might be able to go over it in an upcoming 'Guess the star' video!

If you'd like to check out our 'light curve of the week' posts, follow us on social media. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/planethunters
Twitter: https://twitter.com/planethunters
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/planethunte...

LC of the week 1

LC of the week 2

Stars + planets 4: Guess the star 2 - What causes these interesting light curves? ft Cole

Can you guess the light curve? Kassie and Nora are joined by Cole to discuss a number of unique light curve that you might have come across on Planet Hunters TESS. If you see a light curve that you want to know more about, send it our way and we might be able to go over it in an upcoming 'Guess the star' video!

If you'd like to check out our 'light curve of the week' posts, follow us on social media. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/planethunters
Twitter: https://twitter.com/planethunters
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/planethunte...

Stars + planets 5: Guess the star 3 - What causes these interesting light curves? ft Cole

We are back again with more intersting light curves and more fun stars facts from Cole.

LCOTW3

Stars + planets 6: What does a star spot look like?

Hello and welcome to another episode of Coffee Chat! Pour yourself a cup of your favorite beverage and settle in - we're continuing with the star theme for one more episode!

Follow along with the videos by downloading the jupyter notebooks or using the online colab notebooks!

notebook1: example with simulated data

notebook2: example with real TESS data

periodogam

Stars + planets 7: How is radial velocity (RV) used to discover exoplanets?

Planet Hunters Coffee Chat is back after a short break! In this episode we discuss how we can determine the mass of a planet using radial velocity observations! You can follow along with the below notebooks!

RVs