Hats-3b: An inflated hot jupiter transiting an F-type star*

We report the discovery by the HATSouth survey of HATS-3b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting a V = 12.4 F dwarf star. HATS-3b has a period of P = 3.5479 days, mass of M<SUB>p</SUB> = 1.07 M <SUB>J</SUB>, and radius of R<SUB>p</SUB> = 1.38 R <SUB>J</SUB>. Given the radius of the planet, the brightness of the host star, and the stellar rotational velocity (vsin i = 9.0 km s<SUP>-1</SUP>), this system will make an interesting target for future observations to measure the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect and determine its spin-orbit alignment. We detail the low-/medium-resolution reconnaissance spectroscopy that we are now using to deal with large numbers of transiting planet candidates produced by the HATSouth survey. We show that this important step in discovering planets produces log g and T <SUB>eff</SUB> parameters at a precision suitable for efficient candidate vetting, as well as efficiently identifying stellar mass eclipsing binaries with radial velocity semi-amplitudes as low as 1 km s<SUP>-1</SUP>. The HATSouth network is operated by a collaboration consisting of Princeton University (PU), the Max Planck Institute für Astronomie (MPIA), and the Australian National University (ANU). The station at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) of the Carnegie Institute is operated by PU in conjunction with collaborators at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), the station at the High Energy Spectroscopic Survey (HESS) site is operated in conjunction with MPIA, and the station at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO) is operated jointly with ANU.