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We present multiwavelength photometric monitoring of WD 1145+017, a white dwarf exhibiting periodic dimming events interpreted to be the transits of orbiting, disintegrating planetesimals. Our observations include the first set of near-infrared light curves for the object, obtained on multiple nights over the span of 1 month, and recorded multiple transit events with depths varying between ~20 and 50 per cent. Simultaneous near-infrared and optical observations of the deepest and longest duration transit event were obtained on two epochs with the Anglo-Australian Telescope and three optical facilities, over the wavelength range of 0.5-1.2 μm. These observations revealed no measurable difference in transit depths for multiple photometric pass bands, allowing us to place a 2σ lower limit of 0.8 μm on the grain size in the putative transiting debris cloud. This conclusion is consistent with the spectral energy distribution of the system, which can be fit with an optically thin debris disc with minimum particle sizes of 10-3+5 μm.

We report detections and constraints for the near-infrared Ks band secondary eclipses of seven hot-Jupiters using the IRIS2 infrared camera on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Eclipses in the Ks band for WASP-18b and WASP-36b have been measured for the first time. We also present new measurements for the eclipses ofWASP-4b, WASP-5b, andWASP-46b, as well as upper limits for the eclipse depths ofWASP-2b andWASP-76b. In particular, two full eclipses ofWASP-46b were observed, allowing us to demonstrate the repeatability of our observations via independent analyses on each eclipse. Significant numbers of eclipse depths for hot-Jupiters have now been measured in both Ks and the four Spitzer IRAC bandpasses. We discuss these measurements in the context of the broad-band colours and brightness temperatures of the hot-Jupiter atmosphere distribution. Specifically, we re-examine the proposed temperature dichotomy between the most irradiated, and mildly irradiated planets. We find no evidence for multiple clusters in the brightness temperature-equilibrium temperature distributions in any of these bandpasses, suggesting a continuous distribution of heat re-emission and circulation characteristics for these planets.

We report the discovery of HATS-1b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting the moderately bright V = 12.05 G dwarf star GSC 6652-00186, and the first planet discovered by HATSouth, a global network of autonomous wide-field telescopes. HATS-1b has a period of P 3.4465 days, mass of Mp 1.86 M J, and radius of Rp 1.30 R J. The host star has a mass of 0.99 M ☉ and radius of 1.04 R ☉. The discovery light curve of HATS-1b has near-continuous coverage over several multi-day timespans, demonstrating the power of using a global network of telescopes to discover transiting planets.