Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than our Sun, and the most common way of detecting them is by the transit method. This method consists of plotting the relative brightness of the exoplanets host star against a comparison star to make what is known as a light curve. Periodic dips in the light curve could correspond to the exoplanet coming in front of its host star, and blocking some of its light. One time of great importance to constantly keep up to date is the exoplanets mid-transit time. The mid-transit time is the time in which the exoplanet is in the middle of its transit; however, the problem with this value is that it changes over many periods due to the uncertainty in the period of the planet. Thus, it is important to update transit timings as incorrect timings can hinder observations from expensive telescopes. Crowdsourcing exoplanet transit analysis is a great opportunity to help these large telescopes and get the community involved in exoplanet research. In this study, six citizen scientists from the East Bay Astronomical Society (EAS) performed a transit analysis of HATS-4 b using the Exoplanet Transit Interpretation Code (EXOTIC). Using newly calculated mid-transit times, we were able to see how off the expected mid-transit time based on the existing mid-transit time on the NASA Exoplanet Archive was by calculating the phase difference.

系外行星是围绕太阳以外的恒星运行的行星，检测它们的最常见方法是通过凌日法。该方法包括绘制系外行星主星与比较星的相对亮度，以制作所谓的光变曲线。光变曲线的周期性下降可能对应于系外行星出现在其主星前面，并阻挡了它的一些光。不断保持最新状态的一个非常重要的时间是系外行星的中转时间。中间凌日时间是系外行星处于凌日中间的时间；然而，这个值的问题在于，由于行星周期的不确定性，它会在多个周期内发生变化。因此，更新凌日时间很重要，因为不正确的时间会阻碍昂贵望远镜的观测。众包系外行星凌日分析是帮助这些大型望远镜并使社区参与系外行星研究的绝佳机会。在这项研究中，来自东湾天文学会 (EAS) 的六名公民科学家使用系外行星凌日解释代码 (EXOTIC) 对 HATS-4 b 进行了凌日分析。使用新计算的中转时间，我们能够通过计算相位差来了解基于 NASA 系外行星档案馆中现有的中转时间的预期中转时间有多偏离。