[Aavso-photometry] Exposures for automated AAVSO observing

[R. Brian Potter]

Hi All,

I have been experimenting with CCD Autopilot for automating my observing
runs.  The program works fantastic for automating tasks like taking darks,
biases, and dawn flats. It is built primarily for astrophotographers,
however, and requires that exposure times be specified for each target in
your observing run.  This is difficult for VSOing, as the optimal exposure
time varies with airmass and with the current magnitude of the target.

Is there a way to calculate reasonable exposure times for variable stars in
advance, perhaps based on images of a standard field and recent observations
of the target for a given filter?  I am working primarily with Mira-type
variable stars, where I will be hopping from field to field and taking a
number of images of each in one or more filters.  I suppose this could also
apply to light curve photometry of faster varying stars, if the potential
range of the light curve were reasonably known.

As a professional with a day job in another field, saving sleep time is
quite an important problem for me at the moment...any thoughts would be most
appreciated!

Thanks and Clear skies,

Brian Potter (PRV)
Plymouth, MI