CCD photometry
CCD cameras have long been used in the production of “pretty pictures” – the wonderful astrophotographs that we see in magazines, books and websites. However, CCD cameras also have a long history of scientific study, and with the plethora of commercial and free photometry software, they have become the mainstay of amateur research activities.
Projects for CCD photometry
Note that like Visual Observing, this area of research within VSS is based around the technique of observing, rather than purely the nature of the objects being studied. Some of the projects below therefore overlap with the research areas that focus purely on specific types of variable stars.
V0745 Sco Campaign
Project Leader: Tom Richards
Rod Stubbings observed V745 Sco in outburst (mvis=9.0) on 2014 February 6.6 after observing it fainter than 13.0 24 hours prior. The nova has subsequently been confirmed by Paul Camilleri (CMQ) and Steve O’Connor (OCN), with more data coming in.
Jeno Sokoloski has requested as much photometry as possible and is also requesting spectroscopic follow-up from the community as well. Several professional researchers are already working on getting X-ray and radio data for this nova, and optical data from the AAVSO community will be very useful for comparison to other wavelengths.