This work is part of an ongoing project which aims to detect terrestrial planets in our neighbouring star system α Centauri using the Doppler method. Owing to the small angular separation between the two components of the α Cen AB binary system, the observations will to some extent be contaminated with light coming from the other star. We are accurately determining the amount of contamination for every observation by measuring the relative strengths of the H-α and NaD lines. Furthermore, we have developed a modified version of a well-established Doppler code that is modelling the observations using two stellar templates simultaneously. With this method we can significantly reduce the scatter of the radial velocity (RV) measurements due to spectral cross-contamination and hence increase our chances of detecting the tiny signature caused by potential Earth-mass planets. After correcting for the contamination we achieve RV precision of ~2.5 m s−1 for a given night of observations. We have also applied this new Doppler code to four southern double-lined spectroscopic binary systems (HR159, HR913, HR7578 and HD181958) and have successfully recovered radial velocities for both components simultaneously.

The ‘holy grail’ in planet hunting is the detection of an Earth-analogue: a planet with similar mass as the Earth and an orbit inside the habitable zone. If we can find such an Earth-analogue around one of the stars in the immediate solar neighbourhood, we could potentially even study it in such great detail to address the question of its potential habitability. Several groups have focused their planet detection efforts on the nearest stars. Our team is currently performing an intensive observing campaign on the α Centauri system using the High Efficiency and Resolution Canterbury University Large Échelle Spectrograph (Hercules) at the 1 m McLellan telescope at Mt John University Observatory in New Zealand. The goal of our project is to obtain such a large number of radial velocity (RV) measurements with sufficiently high temporal sampling to become sensitive to signals of Earth-mass planets in the habitable zones of the two stars in this binary system. Over the past few years, we have collected more than 45 000 spectra for both stars combined. These data are currently processed by an advanced version of our RV reduction pipeline, which eliminates the effect of spectral cross-contamination. Here we present simulations of the expected detection sensitivity to low-mass planets in the habitable zone by the Hercules programme for various noise levels. We also discuss our expected sensitivity to the purported Earth-mass planet in a 3.24-day orbit announced by Dumusque et al. (2012).

HD 202850 is a late B-type supergiant. It is known that photospheric lines of such stars vary. Due to macroturbulence the lines are much wider than expected. Macroturbulence has been linked to stellar pulsations. It has been reported that there are several B supergiants that undergo pulsations. In our previous work, we detected a pulsational period of 1.59 hours in this object from data taken with the Ondřejov 2-m telescope. We continued to investigate this object and we took several time series with the DAO 1.2-m telescope. Our new data suggest that there may be some additional pulsational periods in this star. We present our new results in this poster.

Weihai Echelle Spectrograph (WES) is the first the fiber-fed echelle spectrograph in China. WES can provide data for the studies of metal abundance of stars, exoplanets researches and asteroseismology, etc. A brief description of its design and performance is given.

Every ten years the astronomy and astrophysics community in the United States undertakes a survey intended to prioritize plans for major ground- and space-based astronomical facilities for the coming decade. New Worlds, New Horizons (NWNH) was released in August 2010 and represents the community's advice to the United States' funding agencies about the top priorities for 2010-2020. Here we focus on the recommendations of NWNH for space-based exoplanet missions to be considered by NASA, and on the plans developed to date for how NASA will respond to the science goals and missions set out for them by NWNH.

The PRIMA (Phase-Referenced Imaging and Micro-arcsecond Astrometry) facility at ESO VLTI (Paranal observatory) is expected to be commissioned in mid 2008. The ESPRI (Exoplanet Search with PRIMA) consortium is currently preparing an astrometric survey to search for extrasolar planets. To achieve the scientific goal of this survey, a careful selection of target and reference stars is necessary. Apart from catalog search and modelling, extensive and dedicated preparatory observations are indispensable. Here we present two aspects of the preparatory observation programs: A high dynamic range near infrared (NIR) imaging survey to search for astrometric reference stars around the preselected target stars and characterization of the target stars by using high-resolution spectroscopy.

37 potential members of the red-giant branches of NGC 6192, NGC 6208 and NGC 6268 were observed in the UBV system, while 22 of them were also observed in the DDO system. The observations were made at La Silla and Cerro Tololo Inter-American observatories (Chile), using pulse-counting photoelectric photometers. Coravel radial velocities (RVs) were obtained at La Silla for 24 red giant candidates in the three clusters. Five stars of NGC 6192 have RVs in the narrow range -8.8 km/s < VR < -6.4 km/s, including two new spectroscopic binaries (SBs). Three stars of NGC 6208 – including a new SB – and three stars of NGC 6268 show similar RVs so that their physical membership to NGC 6208 and NGC 6268, respectively, is highly probable. Mean radial velocities are: -7.7 ± 0.38 km/s (NGC 6192), -32.21 ± 0.28 km/s (NGC 6208) and -15.11 ± 0.08 km/s (NGC 6268). We have also derived the following mean E(B-V) values from Janes (1977) iterative method: 0.63 ± 0.02 (NGC 6192), 0.31 ± 0.02 (NGC 6208) and 0.43 ± 0.02 (NGC 6268).

This document introduces the reports by the Commissions and Working Groups of Division IX.

This report from Commission 30 covers the salient areas in which major progress has been made in the triennium covered by the present volume. The principal scientific areas are: The Milky Way, star clusters, spectroscopic binaries, extrasolar planets, pulsating stars and stellar oscillations. Following these, an account is given of the progress in techniques and methodology for radial velocity determinations. Finally, a summary is given of the progress made by the working groups of the Commission, followed by a list of key papers in the triennium. A more extensive report also covering extragalactic work, which due to unforeseen circumstances could not be included here, can be found at the web page of Commission 30 (http://www.iau.org/IAU/Organization/divcom/).

Orbital properties of extra-solar planets are briefly recalled and compared with equivalent features of stellar binaries. Similarities and differences are discussed. Among the more than 115 extra-solar planets discovered to date, 19 are orbiting a component of a binary system. We discuss the properties of this subsample and compare them with the equivalent characteristics of planets around single stars. Differences in the mass-period-eccentricity distributions are observed: exoplanets with m2 sin i > 2 MJup and P≤ 40-100 days are in binaries and present low eccentricities. In the context of the migration scenario, these characteristics are tentatively explained in the light of recent simulations of planet-disk interactions showing an increased accretion and migration rates of planets in case an additional perturbing close stellar companion is present in the system. Finally, different observational approaches to find planets in long-period spectroscopic binaries aiming to improve the still poor available statistics are presented. An important result is the detection of a planetary companion in the HD 41004 triple system.

New medium—resolution spectroscopic observations of two long—period WR binaries have been obtained using the 1.5 m telescope at the Tartu Astrophysical Observatory. The binarity of these systems is confirmed and orbital parameters are determined.