[Aavso-photometry] CCD Mentor Project

[Jeff Hopkins]

With the sale of the DSI Pro for $129 (DSI color for $99) many people 
are taking advantage of it. I have had e-mail from several people 
wishing to give photometry a try.

Being retired and in the monsoon season I have lots of time right 
now. I have started to put together a CCD Mentor program aimed at 
getting people started. The July issue of S&T had an article on 10 - 
12 Mv SZ Herculis (a very fast - less than 20 hours - eclipsing 
binary system with a two magnitude change) that will be in a good 
position for the northern hemisphere for the next few months. I think 
this may be a good starter project. People could use any CCD camera, 
color, monochrome, with or without filters, with just one or two 
filters.

I have learned that the best ways to really learn a subject are to 
write about it or help someone else learn it. As such I really like 
projects like this. While it may not produce data of scientific 
value, being able to create light curve may encourage observers to 
venture into other projects. I have the start of a web site for this 
purpose at

http://www.hposoft.com/SZHER/Mentor.html

One of the first things will be to image the star system. That means 
finding it, determining a good exposure time (in each filter for 
filter photometry) and figuring out at least one good comparison star 
with standard BVRI values.

This is a two way street as I hope to learn a few things too. While I 
mentioned the DSI Pro, this project applies to any CCD camera. If 
you/we produce some good data the data will be archived in the AVSO 
database.

I am very interested in comments and suggestions.

Thanks.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Hopkins
HPO SOFT
Counting Photons
http://www.hposoft.com/Astro/astro.html
Hopkins Phoenix Observatory
7812 West Clayton Drive
Phoenix, Arizona 85033-2439 U.S.A.
(623)849-5889
(623) 247-1190 (Fax)
www.hposoft.com