Newest Planet Found With Small Telescopes

Aug. 26, 2004 - Astronomers have found the latest planet in another solar
system - or "exoplanet" - using telescopes no bigger than those you might
find at a garage sale.

Using four-inch wide telescopes in California, Arizona and the Canary
Islands, a Jupiter-like planet has been detected passing in front of its
star every 3.03 days. The star is in the constellation Lyra, about 500
light-years from Earth.

"The smaller the scope, the brighter the star has to be," said the National
Center for Atmospheric Research's Timothy Brown, one of the leaders of the
team that made the initial discovery.

The discovery was the first confirmed planet found by the Trans-Atlantic
Exoplanet Survey (TrES), hence its name, TrES-1. The discovery was
confirmed, ironically, with the world's largest telescope in Hawaii.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs...der_print.html