No matter where you are on Earth, it's likely that at least a few transiting exoplanets will be visible tonight. You can look up upcoming transits so that you know when and where to look for them. Transits can last anywhere from an hour to five or six hours, and some are even longer. When observing an exoplanet transit, it's important to capture the star's baseline brightness before the exoplanet starts passing in front of it, then capture the transit as well as an hour or two after the transit ends, so that the baseline brightness of the star can be measured again.
Embedded below is the Swarthmore Transit Finder, a helpful tool for planning your own observations of any transiting exoplanet.
Current Exoplanet Watch Observation Campaigns: K2-29 b, WASP-18 b, NGTS-10 b, WASP-33 b
If you have a target that you would like Exoplanet Watch to observe for you, please reach out to us on Slack or email us at exoplanetwatch@jpl.nasa.gov
Recommended Observing Targets brighter than V magnitude 10 and transit depths greater than 0.9% (for more challenging targets see the Swarthmore Transit Finder below).
Click on the + more links below to see the calendars for each continent. All times are approximate in UTC.
North America:
South America:
Europe:
South Africa:
Australia/New Zealand:
To find out when to look for these exoplanets in your local area, you can use the Swarthmore Transit Finder. Depending on your location within your continent, there may be other targets that are better (in which the complete transit occurs above your horizon).
How to use the Swarthmore Transit Finder:
