References of interest to TASS members

I've tried to list below references to books, magazines and journal articles that might be interest to TASS members. If you have suggestions for additions, please let me know!

Last updated Aug 13, 2002
Michael Richmond
mwrsps@rit.edu

• Photometry: Basic guide, step-by-step, focuses on photometers (not CCDs)

     "Photoelectric photometry of variable stars : a practical guide
        for the smaller observatory", by Douglas S. Hall and Russell M. Genet,
        Willman-Bell, 1988 (second edition)
     

• Collection of many instructional papers on CCD photometry

     "Astronomical CCD observing and reduction techniques", edited by
        Steve B. Howell, Astronomical Society of the Pacific (conference
        series), 1992.
     

• Basic guide to CCD data reduction

     "A User's Guide to CCD Reductions with IRAF", by Phillip Massey.
     

  You can download a gzip'ed PDF version of this document from the TASS web site, or get a compress'd Postscript copy from the IRAF WWW site http://iraf.noao.edu.

• Advanced discussion of the nuances of stellar photometry

     "Astronomical photometry: a guide", by C. Sterken and J. Manfroid,
        Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.
     

• Good discussion of the variability of extinction throughout a night, how to detect it and how to correct for it

     "Spurious effects in presence of a variable extinction coefficient
      in photoelectric photometry", by E. Poretti and F. Zerbi,
      Astronomy and Astrophysics, 268, 369 (1993)
     

• Description of "Ensemble Photometry"

      "CCD Ensemble Photometry on an Inhomogeneous Set of Exposures", 
        by R. K. Honeycutt,
        Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 
        vol 104, 435 (1992).
     

• Theory and reduction of photometry, details of photometer construction

     "Astronomical Photometry" by A. A. Henden and R. H. Kaitchuck (Van Nostrand
        Reinhold, New York), 1982.
     

• Review of book A Practical Guide to CCD Astronomy

      This review comes to us from Herbert Johnson (hjohnson@pluto.njcc.com),
      and first appeared in the New Jersey Astronomy Association's
      newsletter in Winter, 1998.
      

• How to use the IRAF package to reduce stellar photometry

      Stellar Photometry with IRAF
       

• The future of massive variability searches, by Bohdan Paczynski. A paper presented at the 12th IAP Colloquium: Variable Stars and the Astrophysical Returns of Microlensing Surveys, July 12, 1996. Read the Abstract only (in HTML) or the entire paper (in Postscript).

• A short list of methods one might use to determine the period of a variable star. Posted to vsnet-chat by Jeff Roberston on Feb 21, 1997. Read Jeff's list of techniques.

• Herb Johnson recommends the following articles for their advice on finding appropriate limits for detection in an astronomical context. He states:

  Here is a radio spectrum version of our kind of survey work. The methods used are discussed in unusual detail, as compared to current publications of surveys. A principle author, R. Dixon, has been contacted by Herb Johnson for more information and permissions to post the articles. Herb has worked with Dr. Dixon recently on this and related radio surveys.

     Astrophysics Journal, vol 144, p. 559,  1966: 
         J. D. Kraus and R. S. Dixon,
         "A new high-sensitivity study of the M31 region at 1415 MC/S"
  
     Astronomical Journal, vol 72, p. 546,  1967:
         D. J. Scheer and J. D. Kraus,
         "A high-sensitivity survey of the North Galactic Polar Region 
          at 1415 MHz"
  
     Astronomical Journal, vol 73, p. 381, 1968: 
         R. S. Dixon and J. D. Kraus,
         "A high-sensitivty 1415 MHz Survey at North Declinations 
          between 19 degrees and 37 degrees" 
       

• Arne Henden recommends this paper for a discussion of various centroiding techniques.

     Astronomical Journal, vol 97, p. 1227, 1989:
         R. Stone,
         "A comparison of digital centering algorithms"
      

• Arne Henden recommends this paper if you are interested in detecting asteroids in TASS images:

     Astronomical Journal, vol 101, p. 1518, 1991:
         D. L. Rabinowitz,
         "Detection of Earth-Approaching Asteroids in Near Real-Time"
       

• Chris Albertson recommends this paper on the representation of astronomical coordinates in FITS files: click on the title to download a Postscript version.

      Representations of Celestial Coordinates in FITS,
         E. W. Greisen and M. Calabretta.
  
      

• Chad Trujillo has generously made available a copy of a preprint on detecting Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) in long exposure images. The paper's text and some of its figures are available in Postscript format:

         download the text of the paper
         download Figure 1
         download Figure 3
         download Figure 4
      

• This is one of two articles describing the FASTT astrometric survey around the celestial equator. The FASTT survey provides not only excellent positions, but also R-band magnitudes.

         AJ 114, 2811, 1997,
         "Astrometric Calibration Regions Along the Celestial Equator"
       

• An article by Christophe Alard and Robert Lupton on a method to subtract one image of a field from another. The method may be used to improve photometry in crowded fields. This paper is in Postscript format, with several figures, and is pretty big (about 690 K). You can also find it on the Los Alamos Astrophysics Preprint server, at http://xxx.lanl.gov/find/astro-ph/1/alard/0/1/0/past/1/0

         A method for optimal image subtraction
              C. Alard and R. H. Lupton
       

• Brian Skiff recommends an article about the use of CCDs for astronomical photometry. It's oriented towards the practical ends of things, and contains many addresses and URLs. There is some information about the article in the JBAA WWW site. The article itself appears in

         Journal of the British Astronomical Association, April 1998 (vol 108),
         "UBVRI Photometry using CCD cameras", by Richard Miles.
       

• This paper by Manfroid explains how to remove position-dependent errors in CCD photometry by making repeated observations of a star field, with small shifts between the exposures: Stellar calibration of CCD flat fielding , A&A Suppl, 113, 587 (1995)

• Michael Koppelman recommends this paper for a good discussion of the analysis of observations of an eclipsing binary star.
  • V1073 Cygni: A New Light Curve and Analysis in PASP, 112, 852 (2000).

• Dirk Terrell recommends this paper by R. E. Wilson on the interpretation of binary star light curves.
  • Understanding Binary Stars Via Light Curves IAPPP, Spring 1994 issue
  • local copy
  Dirk has also written in introduction to the study of binary stars, in PDF format.
  • Eclipsing Binary Stars: Past, Present, and Future Journal of the AAVSO, Vol 30, 2001
  • local copy

• Papers describing the statistics and mathematics involved in searching for planetary transits (thanks to Patrick Wils for finding them):
  • Using All-Sky Surveys to Find Planetary Transits by Pepper and Gould, astro-ph 0208042. Submitted to ApJ.
  • A box-fitting algorithm in the search for periodic transits by Kovacs, Zucker and Mazeh, astro-ph 0206099. To appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

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