The diffuser on NOT opens up collaborations with our Norwegian neighbours
Five students at the Horten upper secondary school in Norway have chosen astrophysics as their task in the course "Technology and research-2", a course where scientific research methods are introduced.
On October 16th, using the 2.56m Nordic Optical Telescope at La Palma
Spain, the observations of the Kepler candidate KOI-0401.01 were
conducted by the students. In addition to a standard broadband
photometric filter, one of the two brand new holographic diffusers was
used, with the main purpose to increase the photometric precision of
the transit event. Besides the field trip to La Palma, the students
had theory lessions during the autumn and field practice using a 0.5m
telescope in Norway. From the data analysis, at a one-minute cadence
an outstanding photometric precision of 0.85 parts per thousand was
reached. Considering KOI-0401.01 is a 15 magnitude star, these first
results from the diffuser are pretty neat!