Star Guide: Showing Citizens the Best View of the Exoplanets

Lead investigator name: Oisín Creaner, Assistant Professor at Dublin City University oisin.creaner@dcu.ie

Lead administrative institution: Dublin City University

Funding call:   Open Research Fund 2023. Strand II: Open Research Stimulus

Project website: https://github.com/creanero/star_guide [WIP]

National action plan theme:   Theme 1: Establishing a culture of open research

• A3.4 Support institutional and community networks for open research
• A3.2.3 Develop a programme to support public engagement with research

Overview of the project: The Star Guide team at Dublin City University are working with international partners and affiliates to make exoplanet observation more accessible. Exoplanets are planets around distant stars.  They can be detected when they pass between us and their home star, an event known as a transit.  Observing transits with powerful space telescopes like ARIEL allows us to learn a lot about them, but the timing of these transits vary.  International networks of citizen scientists work around the clock to refine and update these timings. We support their efforts by making accessible, user-friendly observation planning systems.