Astronomers rely on high tech software to find new planet 600 light years away

An international team of professional and amateur
astronomers, using simple off-the-shelf equipment to trawl
the skies for planets outside the solar system, has hauled
in their first catch.

The astronomers discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting
a Sun-like star 600 light-years away in the constellation
Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown.

Using modest telescopes to search for extrasolar planets
allows for a productive collaboration between professional
and amateur astronomers that could accelerate the planet
quest.

"This discovery suggests that a fleet of modest telescopes
and the help of amateur astronomers can search for
transiting extrasolar planets many times faster than we
are now," said team leader Peter McCullough of the Space
Telescope Science Institute.

McCullough deployed a relatively inexpensive telescope
made from commercial equipment to scan the skies for
extrasolar planets. Called the XO telescope, it consists
of two 200 millimeter telephoto camera lenses and looks
like a pair of binoculars. The telescope is on the summit
of the Haleakala volcano, on the island of Mau`i, Hawaii.

"To replicate the XO prototype telescope would cost
$60,000," McCullough explained. "We have spent far more
than that on software, in particular on designing and
operating the system and extracting this planet from the
data."