Possible method to detect exoplanets

[Allen Hooker]

Her is a method to find exoplanets maybe nobody has thought of.

step 1: use a very large telescope to take a picture of a star.
step 2: use a computer to remove all light from the picture, only remove pixels that have light.
step 3: wait a few weeks and take the same picture again.
Step 4: use the computer program from step 2 to remove all light pixels.
Step 5: look for any objects that are on the picture, these will be exoplanets that have moved in the time between pictures.

seems like this might work! What do you think?

 

[Helio]

The brightness of the star creates huge noise problems where the tiny and close specs of light (exoplanets) are lost in the wash.

The masking techniques work surprisingly well to block the star's light enough to reveal the planet's reflective light, but only if they are close to us where our limited magnification and resolution will work.

But, your idea does work to find spectral changes. Take the spectrum of the star one month, then again when the planet is transiting. Subtracting the known spectral values for the star reveals a net difference, which is due to the planet. This can determine information about its atmosphere. [It's not quite this simple.]

 

[Allen Hooker]

Yes I agree that the light from a planet the size of earth may not be enough to be resolved by any telescope we have today. But the possibility of seeing planets directly is really the holy grail of astronomy! Maybe sometime in the near future it will be possible.

 

[Catastrophe]

Are you not referring to an exoplanet transit, rather than light from the exoplanet? But in principle I think that is what they are doing now. No?

Cat

 

[Pogo]

This is reminiscent of the blink microscope used by Tombaugh to image Pluto and used by others to find other bodies, esp. asteroids. They have actually imaged exoplanets, a couple anyway by this or a similar method.