Recent surveys exploring nearby open clusters have netted little to no exoplanet detections. This is surprising, as it is theorized that a majority of stars form within clustered environments before slowly dispersing throughout the galaxy. Exactly what causes this overall lack of planetary systems is not well understood. Though the dynamical effects of star-star scattering has been used to explain this discrepancy in the past, previous surveys’ observational statistics and detection bias argues that the open cluster planet population is indistinguishable from the field planet population.

As such, we purpose to utilize the unique set of tools provided by the Kepler spacecraft to study a set of open clusters that reside within the Campaign 13 field. Specifically, our target list is primarily focused on cool, low-mass stellar candidates whose planetary companions remain difficult to detect with ground-based observations. These stars are of great interest as their cool temperatures and lower probability of hot Jupiter companions theoretically increase the possibility of dynamically stable Super Earths developing within the habitable zone. Any resulting detections will allow us to study the architectures of planetary systems in and out of clusters in search for various signatures of dynamical interactions; improving our understanding of the currently diverse detected planet population. In addition, these observations will provide key physical constraints on multi-scale simulation work being done to study planetary dynamics within clustered environments.