Photometry

Photometry is the measurement of stellar brightness, and usually involves the analysis of brightness as a function of time. Although the stars seem to our eyes to be of constant brightness, the fact is that many are not, and display variations over periods ranging from minutes to years. My current photometric projects include the investigation of two M dwarf stars, one a possible eclipsing binary, and the other a possible rapid rotator. In both cases, I am looking for brightness variations of just a few tenths of a magnitude in a class of stars that exhibit random variations on this same order because of large starspots.