Public Kepler Data on the Bright Star Theta Cygni

The bright star Theta Cygni (Kepler ID 11918630) has been observed by Kepler in both short (59 sec) and long (29.4 min) cadence for a period of approximately 50 days starting on MJD 55410. These observations were made at the request of the Kepler Guest Observer Office and are intended for immediate public release. The purpose is to demonstrate Kepler's exquisite photometric precision on bright, highly saturated targets. Theta Cygni is a F3V/M3V binary with a visual magnitude of 4.9/13.0. The short-cadence data show evidence of granulation (i.e., convection) out to about 1 mHz ( 100 c/d) and clear detection of numerous p-modes with a peak near 1.8 mHz ( 150 c/d). The high-frequency noise floor has a 3-sigma upper envelope of 0.4 ppm. The amplitude of the p-modes agrees with the stellar effective temperature, indicating that the star has a thin convective layer. Since a custom aperture was employed, the light curves will be constructed manually and placed on the Guest Observer website (http://keplergo.arc.nasa.gov/). The corresponding pixel-level data will be available from the Kepler archive (http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/). The Kepler mission can accommodate a small number of such bright targets every quarter. Observing proposals can be submitted annually to the peer-reviewed Guest Observer Program, or much less formally on a quarterly basis for Director's Discretionary Time (see http://keplergo.arc.nasa.gov/GOprogramDDT.shtml).

Kepler was selected as the 10th mission of the Discovery Program. Funding for this mission is provided by NASA, Science Mission Directorate.