With every debris disk image that I obtain I conduct a search for a co-moving object that may be a luminous exosolar planet. Among the stars that I have conducted such searches are Beta Pictoris, Epsilon Eridani, Fomalhaut and Vega using sensitive, multi-epoch optical and near-infrared data.

Like many other researchers who have carried out such campaigns, the faint sources that I have detected are all background objects. Below is a coronagraphic optical image of Epsilon Eridani. The circled objects are confirmed as background stars. The box in the upper right shows a faint source detected in multiple data sets from multiple instruments that is confirmed as real, but NOT co-moving with Eps Eri, and hence a background object. The box below it marks a point source that appears to be co-moving with Epsilon Eridani year after year, but only when observed with a certain telescope. This means that it is a persistent instrumental artifact, and illustrates the difficulty in validating a planet detection.

Fortunately we are well-underway in developing an instrument for the Gemini Telescope, called GPI, that will succeed in directly imaging planets around other stars.

Another method I am pursuing is photometric monitoring of edge-on systems to detect planet transits in the light curve. For this project I am using the 60-cm Ganymed telescope (a.k.a. Capella Observatory) at Skinakas Observatory in Crete, Greece.