Abstract

Much of modern optical and IR astronomy is "photon starved". That is, to pursue current research in imaging and spectroscopy it is often necessary to integrate longer than several nights, for sufficient signal-to-noise ratio. Yet for such long integrations there are diminishing returns: low-level systematic error due to "weather" (night sky variations, clouds, etc.) limit the accuracy of photometry. Thus, this fractional error in night sky brightness translates into a limiting faintness for surface photometry of galaxies. Even worse, there are limiting upper-atmosphere generated systematics on the detector itself. The solution is to use the highest quantum efficiency detectors on the largest telescopes, and develop image acquisition and reduction techniques which cancel the systematics.

© 1986 Optical Society of America