Astronomers look to web-savvy amateurs

Professional astronomers want to enlist amateur stargazers to help them discover planets around distant stars.

The University of California has set up a website with a list of the stars where planets are suspected to exist, and has asked back-garden astronomers to turn their telescopes to view the likely candidates.

The TransitSearch site is designed to save the professionals from having to waste lots of time looking at stars for the slight dimming which occurs when a planet passes between its parent star and the earth.

Watching such planets requires meticulous study, and most professionals do not have the time to watch candidate planets round the clock.

According to New Scientist magazine, scientists have so far only found one planet and do not have the time to find others.

The website explains that such a project is possible because the past few years have seen the introduction of affordable small telescopes equipped with sensitive and stable charge coupled device detectors controlled by laptop computers.

"Thousands of amateur astronomers already own observatories which, when properly configured, are capable of reliably detecting the periodic dimming which occurs when a close-in giant planet passes in front of the parent star as seen from Earth," the site said.