Update on the Complementary Science Program of the ESA PLATO mission (PLATO-CS: launch 2024, 6 years of operations)
- 8% of the observing time will be used for PLATO-CS; this implies some 40,000
targets per pointing (there are 2 long pointings of 3&2 years each,
and a step-and-star phase with several pointings of several weeks each);
- ESA will install a Guest Observer program with calls to the community to
decide about the targets for PLATO-CS; successful Guest Observers will have 1
year proprietory rights. The GO programme is open to anyone interested;
- a Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) option has been accepted for the mission so that
transient phenomena can be observed (reaction time to measure ToO is
to be worked out with ESA);
PLATO has various observing modes, including 2-colour information for the
brightest objects, downloading of imagettes, lightcurves computed onboard,
etc. Various sampling rates will be used, ranging from 2.5 to 600 seconds.
Registered participants will be updated on PLATO-CS and will be able to provide
input on the definition and organisation of the GO procedures. New participants
are welcome:
https://fys.kuleuven.be/ster/Projects/plato-cs/registration
PLATO-CS conferences will be organised on a regular basis as of 2017, with the
aim to discuss the field and target selection, optimal observing strategies and
analyses methods, etc. so as to ensure excellent science exploitation of the
mission.
Best regards,
Conny Aerts, Coordinator PLATO-CS
Weblink: https://fys.kuleuven.be/ster/Projects/plato-cs/home
Email: conny.aerts@ster.kuleuven.be