Precision Photometry Follow-up of High-Value Southern Hemisphere TESS Targets with Minerva-Australis

The MINERVA-Australis facility is a southern-hemisphere robotic telescope array with instruments capable of providing both precision radial velocity spectroscopy and transit photometry for TESS follow-up. Its newly incorporated ability to perform simultaneous photometry of one target with four separate telescopes effectively samples independent atmospheric cells for a fourfold reduction in scintillation. This upgrade provides a combined photometric precision comparable to large ground-based telescopes as demonstrated by the recent detection of a 1.0 R_Earth planet. We present a demonstration of the array’s sensitivity and plans to follow-up ~75 of these high-value TESS candidates in order to obtain precise transit times and perform transit light-curve analyses. By working towards the TFOP SG1 goals of identifying false positives and transit timing variations, and refining ephemerides, MINERVA-Australis would be able to recover the signals of planets most amenable for further follow-up by JWST and the ELTs.