Time series photometry of faint cataclysmic variables with a CCD

Details Time series photometry of faint cataclysmic variables with a CCD Time series photometry of faint cataclysmic variables with a CCD

Aug 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992phdt.........5a&link_type=abstract

Ph.D. Thesis Texas Univ., Austin.

Other

1

Cataclysmic Variables, Charge Coupled Devices, Star Trackers, Stellar Luminosity, Stellar Spectrophotometry, Time Series Analysis, Dwarf Novae, Photomultiplier Tubes, Star Distribution, X Ray Stars

Scientific paper

I describe a new hardware and software environment for the practice of time-series stellar photometry with the CCD systems available at McDonald Observatory. This instrument runs suitable CCD's in frame transfer mode and permits windowing on the CCD image to maximize the duty cycle of the photometer. Light curves may be extracted and analyzed in real time at the telescope and image data are stored for later, more thorough analysis. I describe a star tracking algorithm, which is optimized for a timeseries of images of the same stellar field. I explore the extraction of stellar brightness measures from these images using circular software apertures and develop a complete description of the noise properties of this technique. I show that scintillation and pixelization noise have a significant effect on high quality observations. I demonstrate that optimal sampling and profile fitting techniques are unnecessarily complex or detrimental methods of obtaining stellar brightness measures under conditions commonly encountered in timeseries CCD photometry. I compare CCD's and photomultiplier tubes as detectors for timeseries photometry using light curves of a variety of stars obtained simultaneously with both detectors and under equivalent conditions. A CCD can produce useful data under conditions when a photomultiplier tube cannot, and a CCD will often produce more reliable results even under photometric conditions. I prevent studies of the cataclysmic variables (CV's) AL Com, CP Eri, V Per, and DO Leo made using the time series CCD photometer. AL Com is a very faint CV at high Galactic latitude and a bona fide Population II CV. Some of the properties of AL Com are similar to the dwarf nova WZ Sge and others are similar to the intermediate polar EX Hya, but overall AL Com is unlike any other well-studied cataclysmic variable. CP Eri is shown to be the fifth known interacting binary white dwarf. V Per was the first CV found to have an orbital period near the middle of the gap in the orbital period distribution of CV's. DO Leo is an eclipsing CV which can reasonably be included in a sample of Population II CV candidates.

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