Welcome to the Astronomy course website for Oklahoma Christian University

Important Note From Editor:

My Bad! The e-mail address shown below for contacting OC Astronomy was not connected to anything but the bit-bucket. This problem has been identified and corrected. Your e-mail will now reach us and I will answer any questions or requests for more info. Apparently this problem existed for some time, so please try again now if I failed to reply to you. Again... My Bad.

This negative image shows the star HD189733b. We were able to monitor the changes in brightness and observe a dip during the planet's transit.

Welcome to the Astronomy course website for Oklahoma Christian University. We are an undergraduate liberal arts college without the funding resources of the large research universities. However, we want to show that quality science research can be conducted with modest equipment.

Our goal is to scientifically observe a bright transiting exoplanet (BTE). To obtain data that supports a claim of observing such a target, we need to reduce our error down to below +/- 0.002 stellar magnitude!

This is a difficult level of precision but observations by many amateur astronomers have proven it is an attainable goal.

This web page will show the steps we are taking to collect data that withstands scrutiny. We will:

• Reduce as many sources of error as possible
• Follow procedures put forth by successful variable star and BTE observers
• Use those procedures to capture observations of 'easier' variable star targets
• Refine our methods and skills 
• Capture data on three known BTEs 
• Publish our results in one or more paper submittals to peer reviewed journals