DSLR Photometry

It has been a while since I last provided a public update on the teams in which I am involved and even longer since I discuss what I've been up to, so in the next few paragraphs I'll summarize these activities. If you are looking for a team, the MIRA and eps Aur History teams I discuss below can always use more members as they have both have large projects on which assistance will be greatly appreicated.

Teams

The DSLR Documentation and Reduction TeamRead more

On behalf of my coauthors I am pleased to announce that Tom Pearson, Brian Kloppenborg, and Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein will have an article in tomorrow's release of The Classroom Astronomer, an education magazine for secondary and undergraduate education.  There is a sampler for the next issue that includes a one-page excerpt from our articleRead more

I have recently been contacted by the editor for a magazine entitled "The Classroom Astronomer" about writing an article discussing how DSLR cameras can be used in the classroom.  The magazine is geared towards secondary and undergraduate teachers who have an interest in astronomy.  The article is suppose to answer two primary questions:

1. What you can do with a DSLR Camera
2. Why you should use it in the classroom

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The April Issue of Sky & Telescope prominently features the work of Citizen Sky and the DSLR Documentation and Reduction Team.  Two of the members, Brian Kloppenborg and Tom Pearson authored the article entitled "Photometry for All in the Digial Age," which promotes the work of the DSLR team and shows that when used properly DSLR cameras can compete with traditional methods for bright star photometry.
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Greetings from the 2011 AAS Meeting being held in Seattle, WA.  

Today Rebecca and I presented two posters on behalf of the Citizen Sky project.  Rebecca's poster was focused on the project as a whole, whereas my poster discussed the work the DSLR Documentation and Reduction Team has created for the CS website.

I have posted a copy of the DSLR poster to my portfolio page:
https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port.detail?id=176986 There were several people who were interested in using DSLR as photometers and thanks to conversation I think the team has some more work to do which will make a very cool, publishable paper.Read more

I would like to announce that the DSLR Documentation and Reduction Team has released the long-awaited Air Mass correcting spreadsheet in the Intermediate-level Final Reduction tutorial.  If you have been doing DSLR work in the last few months and your target star has been more than 30 degrees from the zenith, we highly suggest you re-reduce your data with this spreadsheet.

There are sure to be a few bugs we didn't get worked out in the tutorial and/or spreadsheet so if you find something please let us know.  If you have any questions/comments, please post them in the photometry forums.

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