Follow-Up Observations of NASA TESS Exoplanet Candidates Using the Union College and El Sauce Observatories

During the summer of 2019, Professor Francis Wilkin and I joined the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Follow-up Program Working Group to analyze  planet candidates from NASA's TESS mission, launched in 2017. The satellite views the sky in sectors for only 28 days per sector, requiring ground based follow-up observations to identify events on target or eliminate false positives. I have used the Union College Observatory in Schenectady, NY and El Sauce Observatory in Chile to obtain 21 observations during the duration of my thesis. Of these, 8 were submitted to the follow-up team in Sub-category 1, (seeing limited photometry). After Submitting my thesis, I have moved on to the Las Campanas Observatories (LCO) Key Data Group, as part of the follow-up team.