Sakhee Bhure

Precision Photometric Follow-up of High-value Southern Hemisphere TESS Targets with MINERVA Australis

The MINERVA-Australis facility, is a southern-hemisphere robotic telescope array with instruments capable of providing both precision radial velocity spectroscopy and transit photometry for TESS follow-up. Its newly incorporated ability to perform simultaneous photometry of one target with four separate telescopes effectively samples entirely independent atmospheric cells for a fourfold reduction in scintillation. This upgrade provides a combined photometric precision comparable to large ground-based telescopes as demonstrated by the recent detection of a 1.0 R_Earth planet. We present a demonstration of the array’s sensitivity and recent observations of precise transit times and transit light-curve analyses of some of these high-value TESS candidates. By working towards the TFOP SG1 goals of identifying false positives and transit timing variations, and refining ephemerides, MINERVA-Australis is poised to recover the signals of and hence identify planets most amenable for further follow-up by JWST and the ELTs.