Although not designed as an astrometric instrument, Kepler is expected to produce astrometric results of a quality appropriate to support many of the astrophysical investigations enabled by its photometric results. On the basis of data collected during the first few months of operation, the astrometric precision for a single 30 minute measure appears to be better than 4 milliarcseconds (0.001 pixel). Solutions for stellar parallax and proper motions await more observations, but the analysis of the astrometric residuals from a local solution in the vicinity of a star have already proved to be an important tool in the process of confirming the hypothesis of a planetary transit.
@article{arxiv.1001.0305,
title = {Preliminary Astrometric Results from Kepler},
author = {David G. Monet and Jon M. Jenkins and Edward W. Dunham and Stephen T. Bryson and Ronald L. Gilliland and David W. Latham and William J. Borucki and David G. Koch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.0305},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
15 pages, 5 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters