Differential Stellar Photometry

Soham Dey
Roll No.: 15-300-4-06-0108,
Registration No.: A01-1112-0695-15,
B.Sc 3rd Year
Supervisor: Dr. Shibaji Banerjee
St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
Abstract:

The measurement of the brightness of an astronomical object relative to a

standard star (Alcyone) that has constant brightness using CCD photometry is
described.

Introduction:

Differential photometry is the measurement of the brightness of an astronomical

object relative to a standard star that has constant brightness. While this
technique doesn’t give an absolute brightness measurement, it is very useful for
determining how an object’s brightness changes in time.

Theory:

A CCD is a light sensitive silicon “chip” which is used as a device to measure

how much light falls on each pixel of the chip. The output is a digital image,
consisting of a matrix of numbers, one per pixel, each number being related to
the amount of light that falls on that pixel. When doing astronomical
photometry, we don’t usually calculate the actual number of photon per pixel,
as we make our measurements by taking the ratio of the data number for our
objects to the data number for stars, called standard stars, whose flux has been
carefully measured. CCD Photometry is sensitive to the following effects:

1. Integration time
2. Read noise

The measurements have been carried out with careful attention to the following
corrective aspects:

1. Bias frame
2. Dark frame
3. Flat frame

With this the final frames are calculated according to the prescription,

(Raw Object Frame) − (low noise frame) − (low noise dark frame)
Reduced frame =
normalised flat frame

Procedure:
The observed data is the instrumental magnitude of the stars. Therefore, we have
(1) trained ourselves on locating and identifying faint objects (2) learnt to operate
the CCD camera (3) Gathered first image by closely tracking our object star. The
final data was generated by calculating the offset value considering our reference
star Alcyone. Then this value was subtracted from every other observed image to
get their respective magnitudes.

References:

1. Mark Gallaway, An Introduction to Observational Astrophysics. Springer

International Publishing Switzerland 2016
2. Budding E, Demircan O, (2007) Introduction to Astronomical Photometry.
Cambridge University Press