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The transit signature of exoplanets provides an avenue through which characterization of exoplanetary properties may be undertaken, such as studies of mean density, structure, and atmospheric composition. The Transit Ephemeris Refinement…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
The MOST photometric space mission discovered an eclipsing binary among its guide stars in June 2006 which combines a relatively large eccentricity e = 0.20 with an orbital period of only 2.27 days. HD 313926 appears to consist of two…
Stellar rotation periods are valuable both for constraining models of angular momentum loss and for under- standing how magnetic features impact inferences of exoplanet parameters. Building on our previous work in the northern hemisphere,…
We present the results of a transcontinental campaign to observe the 2009 June 5 transit of the exoplanet HD 80606b. We report the first detection of the transit ingress, revealing the transit duration to be 11.64 +/- 0.25 hr and allowing…
The eccentricity distribution of exoplanets is known from radial velocity surveys to be divergent from circular orbits beyond 0.1 AU. This is particularly the case for large planets where the radial velocity technique is most sensitive. The…
The field of exoplanetary science has diversified rapidly over recent years as the field has progressed from exoplanet detection to exoplanet characterization. For those planets known to transit, the primary transit and secondary eclipse…
Transiting exoplanetary systems are surpassingly important among the planetary systems since they provide the widest spectrum of information for both the planet and the host star. If a transiting planet is on an eccentric orbit, the…
The orbital parameters of extra-solar planets have a significant impact on the probability that the planet will transit the host star. This was recently demonstrated by the transit detection of HD 17156b whose favourable eccentricity and…
Two decades after the discovery of 51 Peg b, the formation processes and atmospheres of short-period gas giants remain poorly understood. Observations of eccentric systems provide key insights on those topics as they can illuminate how a…
Orbits of known extrasolar planets that are located outside the tidal circularization regions of their parent stars are often substantially eccentric. By contrast, planetary orbits in our Solar System are approximately circular, reflecting…
We report the detection of a substellar companion orbiting an evolved intermediate-mass ($M_\star=2.4\,M_\odot$) star HD 14067 (G9 III) using precise Doppler technique. Radial velocities of this star can be well fitted either by a periodic…
Contrary to the orthodox picture of planet formation resulting in a neatly ordered Solar System, exoplanet systems exhibit highly diverse orbits: short and long periods, circular and eccentric, well- and misaligned, and even retrograde…
A new method for determining the stellar rotation period is proposed here, based on the detection of starspots during transits of an extra-solar planet orbiting its host star. As the planet eclipses the star, it may pass in front of a…
We report Doppler measurements of the stars HD187085 and HD20782 which indicate two high eccentricity low-mass companions to the stars. We find HD187085 has a Jupiter-mass companion with a ~1000d orbit. Our formal `best fit' solution…
When an exoplanet passes behind its host star, we can measure the time of the occultation, its depth, and its color. In this chapter we describe how these observables can be used to deduce physical characteristics of the planet such as its…
Characterization of exoplanets has matured in recent years, particularly through studies of exoplanetary atmospheres of transiting planets at infra-red wavelenegths. The primary source for such observations has been the Spitzer Space…
We show that the gas giant exoplanet HD 189733b is less oblate than Saturn, based on Spitzer Space Telescope photometry of seven transits. The observable manifestations of oblatenesswould have been slight anomalies during the ingress and…
We report high-cadence time-series photometry of the recently-discovered transiting exoplanet system HD 17156, spanning the time of transit on UT 2007 October 1, from three separate observatories. We present a joint analysis of our…
We report on the measurement of transit times for the HD 209458 planetary system from photometry obtained with the MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) space telescope. Deviations from a constant orbital period can indicate the…