Paul Howell is an amateur astronomer with big-league credentials – he helped discover a new planet.

Howell is also one of the founders and the president of Southern Maine Astronomers, an organization that is collaborating with Kerry Kertes, a teacher at Cape Elizabeth High School, to offer a series of astronomy lectures and hands-on experiences for students. On Thursday, Oct. 19, Howell will lecture at the town hall at 9:30 a.m. on his involvement in finding the new planet, dubbed XO-1b, and the public is invited. The lecture will air the following weekend on Channel 3, Cape’s public access station.

The series is funded by a $6,000 grant from the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation.

Seniors in Kertes’ astronomy and marine studies elective class have already been out together as a class in a pre-dawn excursion to view constellations.

“It was tough getting up, but once you’re there it is worth getting up for,” said Alina Sutherland, 17.

Kertes, 49, who has been teaching at Cape for seven years,

said he spent about $4,500 on a new camera to photograph cosmic movement, about $600 on a nice pair of binoculars and the remaining money went to the Southen Maine Astronomers for use of their equipment and the lecture series.

Howell said he used what is called the transit method when he and three other amateur astronomers were enlisted in early 2005 by professional astronomer Peter McCullough to observe a list of about 20 stars singled out by a powerful robotic telescope in Hawaii, which records the brightness of thousands of stars, searching for ones that dim and brighten. Howell said he and the other amateur astronomers, located in California, Arizona and Belgium, made their way through the list.

“It takes a lot of things to go right for this to work,” said Howell, of Cumberland.

On June 23, 2005, the amateurs had a breakthrough – their transit method appeared to identify a planet.

“We certainly had some anticipation that it might be a planet,” said Howell, after spending time observing XO-1b.

Through further observations, the amateurs supported their finding of XO-1b in 2005.

The planet’s name was derived from the name of the project, XO. If another planet were found around the same star, it would be named XO-1c, and if another planet were found around a different star it would be named XO-2b, said Howell. He said more than 100 planets have been found outside our solar system, but only about 10 of those by the transit method, which provides more information on the planets.

Howell will give more details about the role of amateur astronomers and the transit method at his Oct. 19 lecture.

Howell is also helping with the camera that Kertes bought with the grant money. The camera is specially designed for deep space photography. One of the projects the 22 seniors in the class will complete is a series of space photos focused on nebulas.

The students will use the camera, along with Howell’s observatory in Cumberland, to take the photos. The camera will be able to take pictures with various filters that will pick up cosmic radiation and be able to distinguish between the types and ages of the radiation.

Kertes said he wants the students to work with the art department to mat and frame the photos, which may be displayed at the Thomas Memorial Library when they are completed. Kertes said he hopes the students will make use of the photos and what they learned from them throughout their lives.

“There are not many opportunities in life to photograph deep space,” he said.

Kertes is also holding two start-gazing parties. The first one will take place during the week of Oct. 23, and astronomers will set a specific night as the date draws closer and weather predictions are more reliable. The public is invited to come to the event at Gull Crest Field at the high school, where binoculars and telescopes will be in place. Anyone interested in the event should call the high school about specific dates. Another star-gazing event is planned for April.

Ron Thompson will be talking about the sun during the next lecture in the series on Nov. 13 at 9:30 a.m. in town hall.

Local astronomer to talk about finding planetLocal astronomer to talk about finding planet1808 – Cape high school seniors, from left, Bogie Foden, Danielle Steinman and Aline Sutherland share a laugh while discussing astronomy on Friday.