Discover exoplanets in K2 targets that have not been searched (coincidentally observed)

[gully]

Description

K2 observed tens-or-hundreds of thousands of astronomical sources by coincidence-- sources that happened to fall on portions of stamps aimed at other targets. These sources have generally not been searched for planets. In this research project, one would extract lightcurves for tens of thousands of stars, and apply conventional planet search techniques to discover exoplanets.

Benefits

• Find planets

Costs

• Must devise tools for identifying and working with sources outside of the EPIC
• Must devise tools for coping with imperfect observing masks or nearby bright stars
• Untargeted objects may have unknown properties, or be faint, hampering conventional planet confirmation / followup

[JeffLCoughlin]

Great idea. This paper came to mind from the Kepler EBWG, which discovered a couple hundred new EBs by looking at non-KIC sources captured in the Kepler prime data. Worth seeing if their tools are public, or just at their technique.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AJ....151..101A