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Mark Everett Senior Scientist
Planetary Science Institute
1700 E. Fort Lowell Road, Suite 106
Tucson, AZ 85719
U.S.A.
phone: (520) 622-6300
PSI's fax: (520) 622-8060
email: everett
at
psi dot edu
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Mark Everett Senior Scientist
Planetary Science Institute
1700 E. Fort Lowell Road, Suite 106
Tucson, AZ 85719
U.S.A.
phone: (520) 622-6300
PSI's fax: (520) 622-8060
email: everett
at
psi dot edu
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Research Interests:
I'm on a multi-institution team, part of the Kepler Mission's Stellar Classification Program, that is creating a catalog of stars in the ~150 square degree region to be surveyed by the upcoming Kepler Mission. Kepler is a NASA Discovery Program satellite to detect transiting Earth-sized (and larger) extrasolar planets. Photometry of all of the stars in the Kepler field of view (to V~17) is needed for spectral classification and Kepler's target selection. My primary contribution has been the development and execution of the photometric data reduction pipeline used to produce the catalog photometry. Observations are taken at the 48-inch telescope of FLWO (Mt. Hopkins, AZ).
I've been working on photometry of transiting extra-solar planets and candidate planets during time at the FLWO 48-inch telescope not used for Kepler Input Catalog observations. These observations target single stars that already have promising light curves (as first seen in small telescope/wide-angle surveys) and spectral characteristics (spectral type and radial velocity variations). Most of the target stars were first identified by the HAT or TrES projects. We can get high-precision rapidly-sampled light curves at the 48-inch telescope using its Keplercam CCD camera and use those to constrain light curve models. In addition to planet-mass objects, we've also targeted some eclipsing M dwarfs.
I'm also looking forward to the continuation of a long-time project, first developed by Steve Howell at U. of Wyoming and later PSI to use small-to-midsize ground-based telescopes and high precision photometry techniques to produce light curves and survey dense star fields for the signatures of transiting extra-solar planets (see http://www.psi.edu/esp/). Once transiting planets are found, transit light curves are used to measure planetary sizes and orbital periods. Once a sufficient number of stars are surveyed, one can learn which environments and types of stars harbor planets. PSI's involvement in the RCT (telescope) is one aspect of this project.
The RCT is the refurbished 50-inch (1.3-meter) telescope on Kitt Peak. It is a collaborative project involving PSI and 4 other institutions. Some 40-50% of the telescope time is slated for transit searches. Refinement of the software to produce a fully-robotic observatory is ongoing. Much of my work to date has been to produce automated image reduction and photometry software for use at the telescope.
For users of the RCT Telescope, I've put some information on my RCT webpage. It's technical information and manuals, etc. These documents are drafts and are now quite dated!
Orthogonal Transfer CCDs (OTCCDs) are relatively new devices (see Tonry, Burke, & Schechter 1997) which differ from normal CCDs in that charge may be transferred between pixels in the horizontal as well as vertical direction. OTCCDs are planned for use in a number of future wide-field cameras (e.g., WIYN's ODI and PanSTARRS).
Some publications: