The discovery of transiting planets around bright stars holds the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of planetary atmospheres .
In this work we present the search for transits of HD168443b , a massive planet orbiting the bright star HD 168443 ( V = 6.92 ) with a period of 58.11 days .
The high eccentricity of the planetary orbit ( e = 0.53 ) significantly enhances the a-priori transit probability beyond that expected for a circular orbit , making HD 168443 a candidate for our ongoing Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey ( TERMS ) .
Using additional radial velocities from Keck-HIRES , we refined the orbital parameters of this multi-planet system and derived a new transit ephemeris for HD168443b .
The reduced uncertainties in the transit window make a photometric transit search practicable .
Photometric observations acquired during predicted transit windows were obtained on three nights .
CTIO 1.0 m photometry acquired on 2010 September 7 had the required precision to detect a transit but fell just outside of our final transit window .
Nightly photometry from the T8 0.8 m Automated Photometric Telescope ( APT ) at Fairborn Observatory , acquired over a span of 109 nights , demonstrates that HD 168443 is constant on a time scale of weeks .
Higher-cadence photometry on 2011 April 28 and June 25 shows no evidence of a transit .
We are able to rule out a non-grazing transit of HD168443b .