[Aavso-photometry] CCD 'fainter-than' question

[Bob Crumrine]

   Hi Jeff, Brian, Mike, Rick, Ken, Wolfgang and others,
   Whew, I guess there's no such thing as a dumb question! I can imagine how
   more fun this discussion would be had we all been in front of a white board
   at  a  meeting. :-))  As Arne is rewriting the CCD Manual, sounds like
   'fainter-than'  needs  to  be the subject of a paragraph or two.   I'm
   sometimes guilty of giving too technical an answer to a simple question, now
   I see what it's like to be on the other end.
   I'm slowly digging through these responses and sounds like there's no clear
   cut answer so I'm just going to continue with CV, Mira and HMXB stars that I
   can 'see' well on my images.   I'm definitely a CCD newbie (had my camera
   less than a year) but am now starting to feel comfortable taking images,
   darks, flats, and doing reduction so I'm getting there.  I have a Meade DSI
   Pro,  8"  LX-200  and using AIP for reduction.  I've got ~10 years PEP
   experience and been doing visuals since the mid 1960's and find all this new
   CCD stuff fascinating.  I find it exciting to look at a 30 sec image and see
   stars I couldn't imagine seeing visually.
   Thanks,
   Bob Crumrine (CRR)
   Rochester, NY
   Jeff Hopkins wrote:

Well said Brian!

Jeff

At 19:25 -0700 05/28/2008, Brian D. Warner wrote:
  

Michael,

And I'll disagree with the disagreement. Too often, IMHO, discussions
get too bogged down into the theoretical details when answering a simple
question. This, again in my opinion, does more to scare people away from
doing science because they think that "good enough" is not good enough.
I've heard it too often in discussions with people at SAS meetings. They've
seen threads like this and wonder if they should even bother trying.
Indeed, most of the laments I've heard are more the result of discussions
on AAVSO groups than any other. Whether or not you agree, that is the
perception I'm hearing. As we all know, perception is reality.

The more theoretical discussions, especially when they become 
software-specific,
are better handled with white papers or other tools on a vendor's web site, or
off-line among the few who are really interested.

We should keep in mind that the majority of the members are not experts, who
need straightforward answers that don't require that they have a 
specific piece
of software to follow along.

Clear Skies,
Brian D. Warner