Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Mon, 06/11/2012 - 12:51
Is this example of multi-DSLR, multi-color photometry going to be more common in the future?
http://maxi.riken.jp/FirstYear/proceedings/pdf/TAKAHASHI_Ichiro-bin-20110523234154.pdf
Can we handle the flood of data if more of these were to be built to feed the AAVSO?
Hi,
The concept of multiple DSLRs to cover a large area of the sky in a mosaic is interesting but there are a number of issues with this particular implementation that concern me. Firstly, the transformations have no colour term. DSLR RGB filters are not well matched to Johnson-Cousins BVRc which result in large colour terms in the transformation equations.
Second, errors on the coefficients in the equations are large, around 0.2 to 0.3, which makes for poor quality photometry.
Also, with such a large field of view atmospheric extinction would vary significantly across the FOV. If the center of the FOV was at the zenith this might not be quite so bad.
Of course, if the objective is just to detect transient phenomena then precise photometery isn't necessary. Cheers,
Mark