Kepler: Amateur Astronomy

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Home > Education > Amateur Astronomy

Transit of Venus 2012

Amateur Astronomy

Amateur astronomer support is provided in two ways:

Online Information About Exoplanet-Finding: Many well-equipped amateur astronomers are interested in observing transits of giant planets discovered by Kepler. Here are exoplanet-finding resources for amateurs:
- Amateur Exoplanet Archive (AXA) - http://brucegary.net/AXA/x.htm (maintained by Bruce Gary). See also
- American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) http://www.aavso.org/
- The Astronomical League
- Czech Astronomical Society Exoplanet Transit Database (ETD) - http://var2.astro.cz/ETD/. Includes tool for Kepler transit predictions.
- The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia - http://exoplanet.eu/catalog-transit.php (maintained by Jean Schneider)
- NASA Exoplanet Archive - http://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu
- Planetary Society Catalog of Exoplanets - http://www.planetary.org/exoplanets/
- TransitSearch - http://www.transitsearch.org
The Kepler team supports amateur efforts through data made publicly available through MAST (Multimission Archive at STScI - http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/)
Amateur Astronomy Kits: outreach materials for amateurs to conduct astronomy presentations, activities, and demonstrations at local community venues such as astronomy clubs, community organizations, youth groups, or school classes. The SETI Institute (SI) works with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) to develop amateur astronomers resource kits. The ASP has conducted research on the needs of the amateur community, and develops amateur kits for the Navigator Mission and other NASA missions for the Night Sky Network (NSN). The Kepler project with ASP created the Shadows and Silhouettes kit for amateur astronomers.

See space.com article, Shadows and Silhouettes: Looking for Transits Shadows and Silhouettes: Looking for Transits, by Edna DeVore (5 Oct 2006). original space.com article

On 30 Nov 2005, Janice Voss, NASA Astronaut and Science Director for the Kepler mission, gave a teleconference for Night Sky Network members. There are a number of such events and resources available to Night Sky Network astronomy clubs. If you are interested in finding out more about becoming part of the Night Sky Network, see the NSN home page. We are posting links on this page to

Night Sky Network Telecon with Dr. Janice Voss Transcript of Dr. Voss's telecon
Presentation images for the telecon (Power Point, 2.01 MB)
Audio recording of the telecon (7.3Mb)

Amateur observation is informed by other Kepler EPO projects such as theHands-On Universe (HOU): Classroom Investigations Pertinent to KeplerHands-On Universe A Changing Cosmos module (for high school).

The amateur resources and kits support and benefit from transit planet finding activities developed for the Great Explorations in Math and ScienceGEMS Space Science Core Sequence (grades 6-8) and the Planet-Finding Transit Simulation ExhibitsAlien Earths exhibit.

Impact: Amateur Astronomy kits, disseminated though the partner organizations mentioned, should reach several thousand amateur astronomers as well as tens of thousands of people through the public outreach activities of many of those amateur astronomers.

Evaluation: Formative evaluation is conducted to determine the content of the kit, and summative evaluation is conducted once the product is in the hands of the amateur community. NSN has an established evaluation system. Evaluation is also coordinated by the Kepler LHS Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) team.

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