Hat-P-68b: A Transiting Hot Jupiter Around A K5 Dwarf Star*

We report the discovery by the ground-based Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network (HATNet) survey of the transiting exoplanet HAT-P-68b, which has a mass of 0.724 +/- 0.043 M-J, and radius of 1.072 +/- 0.012 R-J. The planet is in a circular P = 2.2984 day orbit around a moderately bright V = 13.937 +/- 0.030 magnitude K-dwarf star of mass M, and radius 0.6726 +/- 0.0069 R. The planetary nature of this system is confirmed through follow-up transit photometry obtained with the Fred L. Whipple Observatory (FLWO) 1.2 m telescope, high-precision radial velocities measured using Keck I/High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES), FLWO 1.5 m/Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph (TRES), and Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) 1.9 m/Sophie, and high-spatial-resolution speckle imaging from WIYN 3.5 m/DSSI. HAT-P-68 is at an ecliptic latitude of +3 degrees and outside the field of view of both the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite primary mission and the K2 mission. The large transit depth of 0.036 mag (r band) makes HAT-P-68b a promising target for atmospheric characterization via transmission spectroscopy.