1 - Overview

Summary

Scope of the subject

This book is aimed at laying groundwork for the purposes and methods of astronomical photometry. This is a large subject with a large range of connections. In the historical aspect, for example, we retain contact with the earliest known systematic cataloguer of the sky, at least in Western sources, i.e. Hipparchos of Nicea (∽160–127 BCE): the ‘father of astronomy’, for his magnitude arrangements are still in use, though admittedly in a much refined form. A special interest attaches to this very long time baseline, and a worthy challenge exists in getting a clearer view of early records and procedures.

Photometry has points of contact with, or merges into, other fields of observational astronomy, though different words are used to demarcate particular specialities. Radio-, infrared-, X-ray-astronomy, and so on, often concern measurement and comparison procedures that parallel the historically well-known optical domain. Spectrophotometry, as another instance, extends and particularizes information about the detailed distribution of radiated energy with wavelength, involving studies and techniques for a higher spectral resolution than would apply to photometry in general. Astrometry and stellar photometry form limiting cases of the photometry of extended objects. Since stars are, for the most part, below instrumental resolution, a sharp separation is made between positional and radiative flux data. But this distinction seems artificial on close examination.