Planet Hunters Talk

Need help about this pattern

  • Ieyasu by Ieyasu

    I already see this pattern, almost perfect sinusoidal with missing dot every x days, here every 6 hours.
    Does it correspond to something? Can you explain it to me please?

    Sorry for my bad english!

    Posted

  • davidbundy77 by davidbundy77

    These gaps are a kind of glitch.

    Only two of the original four reaction wheels are working on Kepler, so it is more difficult to keep the spacecraft pointed precisely. In order to compensate for drifting, Kepler fires its thrusters approximately once every 6 hours. The raw data from Kepler is distorted by this movement and has to be extensively processed to retrieve a useable lightcurve. This processing leaves regular gaps in the data. Compare the raw and corrected data for your example here

    https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~avanderb/k2c2/ep204978870.html

    More details about processing the data in K2 can be found here

    https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~avanderb/k2photometry.pdf

    Posted