Fast CCD Photometry in the Taiwan-America Occultation Survey

Authors :: Chen W. P.
Zhang Z. W.
King S. K.
Alcock C.
Byun Y. I.
Cook K. H.
Dave R.
Giammarco J.
Lee T.
Lehner M.
Liang C.
Lissauer J.
Marshall S.
Pater I. de
Porrata R.
Rice J.
Wang A.
Wang S. Y.
Wen C. Y.
Source :: Open Astronomy, Vol 12, Iss 4, Pp 568-573 (2003)
Publication Year :: 2003
Publisher :: De Gruyter, 2003.
Abstract: We describe the efforts of the Taiwan-America Occultation Survey (TAOS) project to develop a data acquisition and analysis scheme for fast CCD imaging photometry. The TAOS project aims to conduct a census of the Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs) by detecting chance stellar occultation events by these small bodies in the outer reach of the solar system. An array of telescopes, each with fast optics (f/2) of 0.5 m aperture and equipped with a 2K CCD camera (3 square degrees FOV), have been set up in central Taiwan to monitor a couple thousand stars simultaneously. By reading out the CCD chip sequentially a few rows of pixels at a time (pause-and-shift), it is possible to achieve stellar photometry with a sampling rate up to several hertz. Here we report how such a setup has been used to observe the SX Phoenicis type variable CY Aqr to illustrate the potential usefulness of the TAOS database in stellar variability studies.