TASTE: The Asiago search for transit timing variations of exoplanets

Abstract

A promising method to detect earth-sized exoplanets is the timing analysis of a known transit. The technique allows a search for variations in transit duration or center induced by the perturbation of a third body, e.g. a second planet or an exomoon. To this aim, 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 already provide a competitive timing accuracy, as well as a significant improvement over the orbital parameters. We derived refined ephemerides for HAT-P-3b and HAT-P-14b with only one transit each, thanks to a timing accuracy of 11 and 25 s, respectively.