The Galactic Plane Exoplanet Survey (GPX) - an Amateur Designed Transiting Exoplanet Wide-Field Search (Abstract)

(Abstract only) GPX is designed to search high density star fields where other surveys, such as WASP, HATNet, XO, and KELT would find challenging due to blending of transit like events. Using readily available amateur equipment, a survey telescope (Celestron RASA, 279 mm f/2.2, based in Acton, Massachusetts) was configured first with a SBIG ST-8300M camera then later upgraded to an FLI ML16200 camera and tested under different sampling scenarios with multiple image fields to obtain a 9- to 11-minute cadence per field. The resultant image resolution of GPX is about 2 arcsec/pixel compared to 13.7±23 arcsec/pixel of the aforementioned surveys and the future TESS space telescope exoplanet survey.