The discovery of hundreds of planets around stars other than the Sun has alerted researchers to the possible influence of planets in a wide variety of circumstances. Finally, we point out a major flaw with a previous dynamical stability analysis of NN Ser, and by extension, with a number of analyses of similar systems.īinaries: close, binaries: eclipsing, planetary systems, white dwarfs INTRODUCTION Despite the high precision, degeneracy in the orbit fits prevents a significant measurement of a period change of the binary and of N-body effects. The data scatter by 0.07 s relative to the best-fitting model, by some margin the most precise of any of the proposed eclipsing compact object planet hosts. We also find dynamically long-lived orbits consistent with the data, associated with 2:1 and 5:2 period ratios. Allowing both orbits to be eccentric, we find orbital periods of 7.9 ± 0.5 and 15.3 ± 0.3 yr, and masses of 2.3 ± 0.5 and 7.3 ± 0.3 M J. The planetary model survives the test with flying colours, correctly predicting a progressive lag in eclipse times of 36 s that has set in since 2010 compared to the previous 8 yr of precise times. We present 25 new eclipse times of the white dwarf binary NN Ser taken with the high-speed camera ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Telescope and New Technology Telescope, the RISE camera on the Liverpool Telescope and HAWK-I on the Very Large Telescope to test the two-planet model proposed to explain variations in its eclipse times measured over the last 25 yr.

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