[vsnet-chat 1613] FASTT-2 variables

[aah@nofs.navy.mil]

Ron Stone has finished his reduction of the FASTT data and
placed the results in my hands.  It is very sobering!  There
are about 30percent more observations than before (primarily
cleaning up the edges of the 16 SDSS equatorial calibration
zones), and a hundred or so new variables are the result of
the additional photometry.  However, the real difference is
that the 4 Milky Way fields were subsampled for the original
FASTT-1 paper, and now *all* stars down to R=18 have been
included.  The raw numbers say there are 5500 new variables
in the 16 zones!  I'll do my normal slash-and-burn reduction
to remove possible blended objects and then post the new
list prior to publication.  My guess is that half or more
of the variable star candidates will remain.  It is amazing
what an 8" telescope can do with a good CCD!
  (It is also amazing how many bright variables have been
missed by other surveys.  Brian and others -- all of the
photographic surveys such as Harvard/Sonneberg must have
been blinked manually, but many of these stars are so trivial
to find with a CCD system that I wonder why they were overlooked.
Any ideas?)
Arne

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