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A.L. Kraus (CalTech/GNAT), E.R. Craine (Western Research/GNAT), M.S. Giampapa (NSO), R.A. Tucker (GPO/GNAT)
The Global Network of Astronomical Telescopes (GNAT) is testing a prototype system of multiple scan-mode telescopes, the Moving Object and Transient Event Search System (MOTESS), at the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. A primary goal of GNAT has been to develop a data pipeline for reduction of sky survey CCD images to extract photometric data for all of the stars detected in the images. This effort is now complete and we describe here the structure of the data reduction system as it has been applied to the first two years of observations. The system relies on IRAF at its core, augmented by several custom routines for handling of the raw photometry. To date, the system has been applied to a single declination of scanning, +3d18m20s, and has resulted in systematic photometric observations of about 1.5-2.5 million stars. Processing of these data has yielded a list of about 35,000 stars which are convincingly variable. All but about 200 of these stars are new variable discoveries. Funding for this project was provided by an NSF REU grant and an anonymous donor.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: alk@astro.caltech.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.