| Proposal | PROPOSER: William Toomey
AAVSO Observer Code: twp
Engineering Academy
Nashoba Valley Technical High School
100 Littleton Road
Westford, MA 01886
astro1@toomey.net
CATEGORY: STEM Education
PROPOSAL TITLE: Student Comparison of Visual and CCD Variable Star Measurements
GOAL:
The goal of this project is to allow students to learn CCD photometry techniques and to take real data they can submit to the AAVSO database using the BSM HQ telescope.
As part of this project the students will also take visual measurements of the same stars to compare with the results of their CCD image processing. The visual measurements will be taken by the students at the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMoB) facility on the grounds of MIT Haystack Observatory in Westford, MA during Saturday night observation sessions. Students will also be encouraged to take additional visual measurements from home during the week. To accomplish this, all stars chosen for this proposal are binocular objects in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor so they can be accessible to the students with their own equipment during nighttime hours’ year round.
Phase two of this project will introduce the students to taking variable star measurements using their own DSLR cameras. In this phase, the students will compare the differences in the visual, CCD, and DSLR light curves for the same stars.
NOTE:
1) Observations are requested once a week for 16 weeks, preferably on or near Saturday evenings Eastern US Time.
2) V comparison stars are needed for ST UMa and TV UMa
3) Proposer requests a mentor be assigned to help the teacher and the students with reducing the data in VPHOT
4) SNR >= 100 is requested
TARGETS: Six stars are chosen.
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