CHARACTERIZATION OF CoRoT TARGET FIELDS WITH BERLIN EXOPLANET SEARCH TELESCOPE. II. IDENTIFICATION OF PERIODIC VARIABLE STARS IN THE LRc2 FIELD

We report on photometric observations of the CoRoT LRc2 field with the new robotic Berlin Exoplanet Search Telescope II (BEST II). The telescope system was installed and commissioned at the Observatorio Cerro Armazones, Chile, in 2007. BEST II is a small aperture telescope with a wide field of view dedicated to the characterization of the stellar variability primarily in CoRoT target fields with high stellar densities. The CoRoT stellar field LRc2 was observed with BEST II up to 20 nights in 2007 July and August. From the acquired data containing about 100,000 stars, 426 new periodic variable stars were identified and 90% of them are located within the CoRoT exoplanetary CCD segments and may be of further interest for CoRoT additional science programs.