EXOPLANET TRANSITS: MISSIONS

Scroll down to see our Featured Transit Observation!

To find events tailored to your specific location, use the Scientific Events Prediction Page.

To find out if you can observe an exoplanet transit, simply select a row and zoom by scrolling on the map. If you are near any location with a symbol, you are qualified for that scientific mission! If there is not a symbol near your location, you will not be able to observe the event. 

Each symbol has a meaning:

• Blue stars & shading = you can observe the entire event.
• Yellow triangles = you can observe the entire event but you may have temporary tracking difficulty when the star passes almost directly overhead (high altitude).
• Orange diamonds = you may miss the start or end of the event. These observations are still valuable!

You can click on any symbol for precise local observation times, target altitudes, and Sun altitudes.

Reading the Prediction Table:

• The Link automatically populates observing settings into the Unistellar app’s “Exoplanet transits” Science menu.
• Finder is an image of the target field of view. It may be rotated in your sky. 
• Date is the observation start date in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)
• Start, End UTC is the event’s observation start or end time in UTC. Your local start or end time may differ.
• Local is the observation start time in the time zone of your device’s browser.

Featured transit for August 2026:

TOI-4153b

Image Credit: NASA Exoplanet Archive

Observe a known hot Jupiter!

Observation dates: August 22 UTC

Visibility: North America, Europe, Western Africa

Deeplink

TOI-4153b is a hot Jupiter exoplanet discovered in 2024. It takes only 4.6 days to orbit its star – less than a week on our planet! A team is looking to gather observations of this gas giant in preparation for the Ariel mission, so this opportunity allows the Unistellar Network to contribute to the larger exoplanet community! 

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TOI-4153b will transit its host star — a F-type star slightly hotter than our own — on August 22. The transit window begins the local night of August 21/22 for Europe, Eastern North America, and Western Africa. All three locations can gather pre-transit baseline, but the ingress (or transit start) will be visible mostly to North America and Western Europe. North America, including most of the continental United States, will be able to observe the entire transit plus some post-transit baseline.  See the globe video below to plan your observation!

How you can help study a hot Jupiter :

Check the video below or in the tables above to see if this potential planetary transit will be visible to you!

• Once you have planned when you can observe, you must have the right observing settings or use a deeplink. You can use the deeplink below to observe for the entirety of the transit window. Or you can input the row’s recording settings manually to break your observation into one-hour increments by editing the “Duration” setting (this may improve your telescope’s tracking). 
  • Deeplink for full observation 
  • Observing settings: Gain = 21, Cadence = 3970ms, Exp Time = 3970ms, RA = 22h 21m 34s, Dec = +82deg 12′ 58”
• The transit is only about 4.5 hours, but we’ve alotted for plenty of out of transit baseline time. Observe either baseline data or baseline+transit data, but only in-transit data may or may not be useful.
• Lastly, when you are done observing for the night, please submit this short REPORT FORM so we know to process your data.

If this is your first time observing an exoplanet transit, first check out our Exoplanet Tutorial page for an overview of the techniques involved. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at citizenscience@unistellaroptics.com.

Above: A video of the globe detailing the visibility of a transit of TOI-4153b. When your location is shaded in red, the target is > 25 degrees above the horizon and visible to you.

New here?

Head to our Tutorial page linked below for guidance on how to master your Unistellar telescope and become a Planet Hunter. If you have any questions please contact us at citizenscience@unistellaroptics.com.