DSLR Camera Photometry

Overview

Photometry is an area of astronomy that involves measuring the magnitude of stars and other celestial objects. Traditional photometry observations require thousands of dollars of equipment and complex proprietary software, making it widely unpopular and inaccessible to amateur astronomers. The goal of this project was to determine the efficacy of inexpensive, consumer Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras and lenses by optimizing the process of photometry to produce the most accurate results possible with affordable and accessible hardware and software. This optimization analyzed a variety of factors, including camera sensitivity, location in the frame, focus level, exposure length, overall exposure time, and processing type. The Pleiades star cluster was analyzed for this project, chosen for its optimal positioning in the sky during testing, similar star magnitudes, and recognizability. A prototype equatorial star tracking mount was also designed and tested to examine the impact of star tracking vs manual tracking on the accuracy of photometry results. After taking a wide variety of images, the most influential factors were camera sensitivity (ISO), distance from the center of the frame, processing type, and exposure time. Other factors, such as star roundness, and overall exposure length were less influential, only causing errors at extreme values. In optimal conditions without a tracking mount, this system was able to achieve an average of close to .01 magnitude error repeatably, an acceptable error for measuring many variable stars, and showing that inexpensive consumer equipment is capable of high-accuracy photometry.

Competition history

• JSHS 2023 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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