Kepler & K2
The science program and target lists for K2 Campaign 12 have now been posted on the approved targets & programs page.
The Campaign 12 target list includes 29,221 standard long cadence and 141 standard short cadence targets, all located in a high-Galactic latitude field (-60°) on the boundary between the constellations of Aquarius and Pisces.
The short cadence list includes TRAPPIST-1, an ultracool dwarf star known to host several Earth-sized transiting planets. A generous 11-by-11 pixel short cadence mask will be used to capture the target (mask ID 200164267).
The long cadence list includes 2,576 galaxies to enable supernovae and AGN studies. It also includes 8 bright stars (Kp ~5) for which we collected only the central region of pixels using a circular aperture mask, excluding the long saturation bleed. Their target IDs are:
- 200164167 (κ Psc)
- 200164168 (83 Aqr)
- 200164169 (24 Psc)
- 200164170 (HR 8759)
- 200164171 (14 Psc)
- 200164172 (HR 8921)
- 200164173 (81 Aqr)
- 200164174 (HR 8897)
Finally, long cadence custom masks are scheduled to observe 19 Trojan asteroids, 9 Trans-Neptunian Objects, and 4 Comets (90P/Gehrels, 95P/Chiron, 176P/LINEAR, 228P/LINEAR). The trajectories of these moving bodies have been tiled using 1xn or nx1 pixel strips. Most notably, the well-known Centaur 95P/Chiron will be observed for the entire duration of the campaign in long cadence (mask ID range 200164175–200164266) and for 20 days in short cadence (IDs 200161173–200162430).
Compared to the original plan, the Campaign 12 field was rotated and shifted slightly in order to optimize spacecraft stability and to ensure the visibility of TRAPPIST-1.
