Research

Exoplanet Atmospheres

See Kasper et al 2019 for latest results. My research is focused on the novel characterization of exoplanet atmospheres with observations made from the Wyoming InfraRed Observatory (WIRO) (2.3 m telescope). This project is focused on the exoplanet population known as 'Hot Jupiters' This exoplanet population has no Solar System analog. Early observational studies have emphasized the possible existence of clouds that reduce the observability of chemical species detection in the atmosphere. The project takes advantage of the time I have access to WIRO to increase the number of observed exoplanet atmospheres in the visual photometric bands (ugriz) to characterize the detectability of Hot Jupiter atmospheric components. An account of the atmosphere can be made during an exoplanet transit by analyzing transit depth (apparent size of the exoplanet) as a function of wavelength by applying a Bayesian parameter estimator to the spectral data and literature values for other system parameters. The project makes use of the Astro Image J package (Collins et al. 2016), the batman Python package (Kreidberg 2015), and emcee an affine invarient MCMC Python package (Forman-Hackey, Hogg, Lang, & Goodman 2013).

RBO Automation and Transiting Exoplanets

See Kasper et al 2016 for system upgrades. Over the last six years I have been the lead in a small group that has performed remote and automated operations at the Red Buttes Observatory (0.6 m telescope). Major aspects of the project included installation of hardware, creation of control scripts, and emperical tests of safety features. The upgrades were done to make photometric exoplanet transit follow-up observations at RBO accessable for undergraduate researchers.