by Pat Devine

One time install

This process requires the use of ASTAP. Details of how to install ASTAP can be found at

  1. ASTAP at https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm.
  2. Download and install star catalogues from https://sourceforge.net/projects/astap-program/files/star_databases/
    1. variable_star_database.exe
    2. v50_star_database.exe

Imaging for photometry with the Seestar

  1. Make sure that the LP filter is off

Download the stacked file from your seestar.

  1. Connect your Seestar to your PC with the USB cable, or connect via your Wi-Fi network.
  2. I recommend creating a new directory and adding your files in the next step to that directory.
  3. In File Explorer navigate to your Seestar MyWorks folder and download the individual light frames (.fit files only) from your target, in this case Tcrb1-sub, to the folder created in the previous step

File Preparation

  1. Run ASTAP
  2. Click on the Stack menu
  3. Click on the Photometry tab
  4. Click Browse and select the Seestar FITS files you downloaded above.
  5. Select all the files just added and Right click on the files and choose “Extract Green channel of selected files from the drop down menu”

Photometry

  1. Open the page from the ASE website at https://www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2024/02/15/processing-and-reporting-eclipsing-binary-data-using-astap/
  2. Start from the section Do Photometry in the webpage above.
  3. Ignore the first paragraph starting “After the calibration….”
  4. Follow the instruction from the second paragraph starting “On the Photometry tab…”
  5. As well as the detailed data produced, as a result of section 4. Produce the reports on the webpage, you can get the median magnitude of your variable star, in photometry window (see below).