NASA Citizen Scientists have used Exoplanet Transit Interpretation Code (EXOTIC) to reduce 40 sets of time-series images of WASP-12 taken by privately owned telescopes and a 6-inch telescope operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian MicroObservatory (MOBs). Of these sets, 24 result in clean transit light curves of WASP-12 b which are included in the NASA Exoplanet Watch website. We use priors from the NASA Exoplanet Archive to calculate the ephemeris of the planet and combine it with ETD (Exoplanet Transit Database), ExoClock, and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) observations. Combining these datasets gives an updated ephemeris for the WASP-12 b system of 2454508.97923 +/- 0.000051 BJDTDB with an orbital period of 1.09141935 +/- 2.16e-08 days which can be used to inform the efficient scheduling of future space telescope observations. The orbital decay of the planet was found to be -6.89e-10 +/- 4.01e-11 days/epoch. These results show the benefits of long-term observations by amateur astronomers that citizen scientists can analyze to augment the field of Exoplanet research.

翻译：NASA公民科学家利用系外行星凌星解读代码（EXOTIC）处理了由私人望远镜及哈佛-史密森天体物理中心微型天文台（MOBs）运营的6英寸望远镜所采集的40组WASP-12时序影像。其中24组数据生成清晰的WASP-12 b凌星光变曲线，已纳入NASA系外行星观测网站。我们采用NASA系外行星档案中的先验信息计算该行星的星历表，并将其与ETD（系外行星凌星数据库）、ExoClock及TESS（凌星系外行星巡天卫星）观测数据相结合。综合数据集得出WASP-12 b系统的更新星历表为2454508.97923±0.000051 BJDTDB，轨道周期为1.09141935±2.16e-08天，可为未来空间望远镜观测的高效调度提供参考。行星轨道衰减率测定为-6.89e-10±4.01e-11天/周期。这些结果表明，由公民科学家分析的业余天文学家长周期观测数据可有效拓展系外行星研究领域。