Martin Still delivers a lecture meant to show students how easy it is for anyone to find and validate their own planet, given the universal availability of transit data collected by the Kepler telescope (See: Exoplanet Detection: The Scientific Yield of Kepler). This allows any individual to contribute to the field of exoplanets, specifically in the ever-continuing search of a body that shares Earth’s stellar temperature, planet size, and orbit size.

Still describes the basic how-tos of detecting planets, in order to make the most efficient use of the available data. He introduces websites and tools that will provide those interested with guidelines, manuals, and software specific to the science of exoplanet detection. The audience learns to interpret and manage irregularities in the data, and the concepts of eclipsing binaries, aperture photometry, and point-spread function photometry. The secret lies in learning how to correct for glitches to extract high-quality light curves. Future missions associated to Kepler will provide new, exciting data spectrums to work with.

By the end of this presentation, the inspired user understands key the tips and starters to finding their own planet. Given these tools, the accessibility of this information allows anyone to participate in the search of an Earth twin.