Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005jrasc..99u.145w&link_type=abstract
Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 99, No. 4, p.145
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We describe a variable-star search program being carried out on a 0.5-m f/1 Patrol Camera at the RAO. The detector is a 4K × 4K chip mounted in an FLI camera, purchased by P. Brown (UWO). The 4.4 by 4.4 degree image frames provide stellar images of ~2 pixels (FWHM). Results from the first well-studied night sequence reveal a significant number of apparently real variability detections. Most of the variability is seen in stars in the range 11 to 14 magnitudes in the natural system (approximately Johnson-Cousins R), with < 0.1 mag 1 sigma errors. Theoretical predictions show that we should be able to achieve 1 sigma errors smaller than 0.02 mag for stars brighter than ~12 mag. Results show that we are close to the theoretical noise levels. In this first surveyed field there are 1100 stars with 1 sigma error levels below 0.02 mag, so this search program is expected to yield a large number of low-amplitude detections. The Patrol Camera is a former Baker- Nunn satellite tracking camera, modified by DFM Engineering as part of a retrofit supervised by M.J. Mazur, in a collaboration funded by grants from the Alberta Science Research Authority (to EFM), and others (to A. Hildebrand and P. Brown). The modifications included replacement of the original tri-axial with an equatorial mounting and the curved-film plane with the 4k CCD array. The paper will describe the data set, search software, sample light curves, and new variablestar discoveries. The survey is being carried out by MDWas part of his Ph.D. program and is being supported in part by NSERC grants to EFM and the University of Calgary Department of Physics & Astronomy.
Milone Eugene F.
Williams Michael
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