TASTE: The Asiago Search for Transit timing variations of Exoplanets^⋆

I. Overview and improved parameters for HAT-P-3b and HAT-P-14b

¹ Dipartimento di AstronomiaUniversità degli Studi di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy
e-mail: valerio.nascimbeni@unipd.it; giampaolo.piotto@unipd.it, mario.damasso@studenti.unipd.it
² Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, MD 21218, Baltimore, USA
e-mail: bedin@stsci.edu
³ Astronomical Observatory of the Autonomous Region of the Aosta Valley, Loc. Lignan 39, 11020 Nus (AO), Italy

Received: 11 June 2010
Accepted: 24 November 2010

Abstract

A promising method for detecting earth-sized exoplanets is the timing analysis of a known transit. The technique allows a search for variations in either the transit duration or the center induced by the perturbation of a third body, e.g. a second planet or an exomoon. By applying this method, the TASTE (The Asiago search for transit timing variations of Exoplanets) project will collect high-precision, short-cadence light curves for a selected sample of transits by using imaging differential photometry at the Asiago 1.82 m telescope. The first light curves show that our project can achieve a competitive timing accuracy, as well as a significant improvement of the orbital parameters. We derived refined ephemerides for HAT-P-3b and HAT-P-14b with a timing accuracy of 11 and 25 s, respectively.