Kepler Mission Options

[imran]

This NASA Discovery mission is to be launched in June 2008 and will search for Earth-size and smaller planets. Launch was originally scheduled in 2007 but delayed by 8 months due to "funding constraints".

Here's the official web site:
http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov/

[PhilHorzempa]

Here is a direct look at Kepler's FOV (Field of View).







Kepler will be staring at this FOV for 4 years, looking for transits. In this FOV,
there are about 200,000 stars, half of which will meet the criteria for planetary
search (single, non-variable, etc.).

Therefore, Kepler will be sorting through the brightness stability of about
100,000 stars. I think that it would add immensely to one's appreciation of
the magnitude of Kepler's mission if there were actual images of the galactic
star fields inserted into the FOV above.

In fact, it would be helpful to have high-res digital images of each of the
21 sub-fields (each of these sub-fields will be covered by one of Kepler's CCD's).


Does anyone have access to a good source of Milky Way digital imagery,
especially of the area near Cygnus, shown above?


Another Phil

Attached File(s)

 Kepler_FOV.pdf ( 266.75K ) Number of downloads: 1398