Many colleagues joined the campaign with photometric facilities (in red) all over the globe. It was a great #international #collaboration, like #science and #astronomy are great examples. There were complementary to the 5 spectroscopic facilities (in blue) I mentioned earlier.
We also submitted a (actually a few) DDT to the director of the #Hubble Space Telescope (#HST), but it was too late to plan the #observation and it was hence rejected. ❌
A few days before the event, the campaign was in a very good shape. Some #citizen scientists also jumped on board. Many telescopes were ready to observe that rare event !
BUT ...
The #transit was expected to start when it was the night in #Chile. So, #ESO were supposed to start the party. Observation there are performed in service, meaning the observatory staff are performing the observation for you. I was at the #HauteProvence observatory, observing with SOPHIE.
So, I wake up from my morning sleep, checked my emails: no news from #ESO. I checked the archive: no #data available. NOTHING ❌❌❌❌ 😡
Sometimes it takes time for the data to reach the archive, so I contacted #ESO staff and their answer was like:
"Ops, we are so so sorry, we completely forgot about your programme" 🤯 [no problem, I can wait for the next event, in 2036... 😡 ]
Then, I got another email from my US colleague observing with #EXPRES. The email title was "heartbreaking news from Lowell..."
The observing conditions were perfect, the seeing (atmosphere turbulence) was perfect, the instrument stability was perfect ...
BUT ...
a drive of one of the telescope motor was broken and the 4.2m Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory was not able to ... point the target ❌ 🤯
No problem, we still have 3 telescopes out of 5 that can observe part of the transit.
BUT ...
the sky were completely cloudy from those 3 observatories ! NO DATA ❌
So, at the end, out of the 5 spectroscopic facilities committed to this campaign, none was able to secure data. The only observatory which could have secure data (no clouds, no technical issue) was #ESO, but they forget to run that programme... 😡😡😡😡
The situation with photometry wasn't much better, as most of the instruments had relatively poor conditions ...
... except one: NGTS.
Unlike all the other observatory, #NGTS were not only able to detect (one part of) the 19-h long transit, but also measured precise transit timing which exhibited a large (quite unexpected) variation. The other observatory who managed to get some data, missed the transit.
So, out of all the instruments that were planned to observe #HIP41378 on 2019, November 25. ONLY ONE of them secure a detection.
reference: Bryant et al., 2021
We are now 3 years later, this is the next opportunity to observe that event which ended up to be (almost) a complete fiasco last time. The visibility of the star is much lower than in 2019, but we can still do something. However, this is really the unique opportunity we have to observe this even over the 2020's decade.
So, please keep your fingers crossed for clear skies, no technical issues, and for good data.
#ThreadEND THANKS !!
Dr. Alexandre Santerne 🌍