Long-term transit timing monitoring and homogenous study of WASP-32

We report new photometric observations of the transiting exoplanetary system WASP-32 made by using CCD cameras at Yunnan Observatories and Ho Koon Nature Education cum Astronomical Centre, China from 2010 to 2012. Following our usual procedure, the observed data are corrected for systematic errors according to the coarse decorrelation and SYSREM algorithms so as to enhance the signal of the transit events. Combined with radial velocity data presented in the literature, our newly observed data and earlier photometric data in the literature are simultaneously analyzed to derive the physical parameters describing the system by employing the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique. The derived parameters are consistent with the result published in the original paper about WASP-32b, but the uncertainties of the new parameters are smaller than those in the original paper. Moreover, our modeling result supports a circular orbit for WASP-32b. Through the analysis of all available mid-transit times, we have refined the orbital period of WASP-32b; no evident transit timing variation is found in these transit events.

The refined physical parameters of transiting exoplanet system HAT-P-24

The transiting exoplanet system HAT-P-24 was observed by using CCD cameras at Yunnan Observatory and Hokoon Astronomical Centre, China in 2010 and 2012. In order to enhance the signal to noise ratio of transit events, the observed data are corrected for systematic errors according to Collier Cameron et al.＇s coarse de- correlation and Tamuz et al.＇s SYSREM algorithms. Three new complete transit light curves are analyzed by means of the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, and the new physical parameters of the system are derived. They are consistent with the old ones from the discovered paper except for a new larger radius Rp = 1.364 Rj of HAT- P-24b, which confirms its inflated nature. By combining the five available epochs of mid-transit derived from complete transit light curves, the orbital period of HAT-P- 24b is refined to P = 3.3552479 d and no obvious transit timing variation signal can be found from these five transit events during 2010-2012.

A newly discovered active contact binary in the field of NGC 1348

We present a CCD photometry study of a newly discovered active eclipsing binary in the field of open cluster NGC 1348 based on the first time-series photometric observation. From the minimum times, we determined an orbital period of P = 0.691363 d. Among our datasets, the BV（.RI）c light curves obtained in November 2008 were analyzed using the Wilson-Devinney light curve modeling tech- nique. Because of the uncertainty of the membership of this binary in open cluster NGC 1348, we have analyzed the photometric data in two cases with different primary effective temperatures： Case A （T1 = 7750K） and Case B （T1 = 5250K）. Our anal- yses reveal that, for Case A, it is a deep （f 〉 70%）, very low mass ratio （q - 0.096） binary system, indicating that it is now in the late evolution stage of a contact binary; while for Case B, it is a red system with extraordinarily long orbital period with respect to the period-color relation for normal contact binaries, which suggests that this binary has evolved off the main sequence. The well known O＇Connell effect （e.g., AB 0.03 mag） was found in the dataset obtained in November 2008, which could be due to the existence of starspots on the components, therefore the corresponding spot properties （for Case A： hot spot; for Case B： dark spot） were determined using the Wilson-Devinney code. With the purpose of analyzing the dark spot activity for Case B, we compared the light curves derived in different observing runs, and found that a slight change appeared from November to December, 2008, which indicates the evolution of spot activity on at least one component over a time scale of about one month.

Magnetic activity of the spotted dwarf AP149 in the α Persei open cluster

The simultaneous photometric and spectroscopic observations of the spotted G dwarf AP149 in the young open cluster α Persei are analyzed here. We reconstruct the observed light curves with a two-starspot model by means of a light curve modeling technique, and find that the active regions shift oppositely along longitude on a time scale of one day. Combining with the observational data obtained by other groups, we discuss the evolution of spotted regions in the photosphere, and find that its starspots evolve not only on a short time scale but also on a long time scale. The pure chromospheric emissions for Ca IIHK and Hβ lines are derived by using the spectral subtraction technique. The variation of Ca IIHK lines＇ excess emission is spatially correlated to the starspot regions. There is no clear rotational modulation for the Hβ line＇s excess emission, probably due to the contamination of prominence emission.