AAVSO How-To Hour: How to Start with CCD Photometry

"How to Start with CCD Photometry"
Closed captioning is enabled for this video. Our How-to Hour with Bob Buchheim was originally broadcast on May 1, 2021. It will benefit those of you who are curious about the “measurement” aspect of CCD imaging. Buchheim will introduce the concept of stellar photometry, some differences in imaging techniques* when your goal is “measurement” vs. “beauty,” and suggestions for your first few variable star activities.

This How-to Hour will be useful to you even without any experience in CCD imaging, but a little bit of knowledge will be helpful. The goal is to help you experience variable star measurement for yourself, so you can decide if it is an activity that you enjoy.

*A post-webinar note: We discussed the importance of Dark and Flat (and Bias) frames. Buchheim emphasizes that those are the only processing that should be done for your photometry images: no sharpening, no deconvolution, etc. The images may look washed out and “blah,” but they will contain the left-alone photometric information, which is what your photometry software expects.
There was a question about whether Sloan filters are acceptable for AAVSO photometry. The answer is “yes” – the AAVSO photometry database does recognize and accept Sloan-filtered data (filter codes are SU, SG, SR, SI, SZ for the Sloan u’, g’, r’, i’ z’ filters).

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