Ground-based light curve follow-up validation observations of TESS Object of Interest (TOI) TOI-5458.01

Observations of transiting objects around host stars are significant in building our understanding of planet formation and the architecture of our solar system. As part of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, we analyzed TESS Object of Interest TOI-5458.01 around its host star TOI-5458 as a potential exoplanet. The focus of this paper is to corroborate the transit of the potential planetary candidate around its host star. We compared our ground-based observations with data pulled from the Science Processing Operations Center (SPOC), TESS sector data. We first pulled sector data from SPOC to create a TESS light curve and TESS Picture File frame using Python’s Google Colab and provided libraries like lightkurve. We then plate solved images taken from the George Mason University Observatory from December 13th, 2023 to December 14th, 2023 and performed multi-aperture photometry through AstroImageJ to plot a ground-based light curve of the host star and comparison stars to check for a Nearby Eclipsing Binary (NEB). Ultimately, we concluded that TOI-5458.01 has a high probability of being an exoplanet; however, future work is still necessary to conclusively rule out an eclipsing binary or blended eclipsing binary.