AstroWISP, a photometric tool for color images

The photometric method of detecting exoplanets has led to an explosion of space missions and ground-based surveys, resulting in several thousand detected planets and planet candidates. It has also led to a host of studies, enabled by high precision, high cadence photometry, indirectly related to exoplanets. This opens the door for many, potentially transformative, contributions by citizen scientists with access to observing equipment. Having precision photometry using inexpensive detectors, such as consumer grade digital cameras, and user-friendly software allows a vast array of observations to be undertaken by citizen scientists. This will enable amateur astronomers to follow-up hundreds of potential targets found from space missions such as TESS, keeping transit times up to date, as well as freeing up time for professionals to pursue more challenging targets. This effort will help break the barrier between professionals and citizen scientists and will expand their ability to contribute to such cutting-edge science.

We have created a sophisticated software for extracting high-precision photometry from citizen scientist’s observations made by consumer grade color cameras (DSLR cameras). We show a case sample of AstroWISP using a Sony-a7R II DSLR camera, showing our sub-percent photometric precision and some sample light curves. We will briefly explain how we are able to achieve such precision and how this will further enable citizen scientists.