Our contributions to improving astronomical data acquisition are in three main areas:

1. differential optical photometry;
2. infrared photometry; and
3. spectroscopic methods

Note that the S/N plots are in magnitude measure increasing upwards; therefore the best passbands are those which are the most shallow in the histogram plots. The new passbands are prefixed with 'i' (for 'improved') or 'y' (for 'Young'); the Customs Scientific passbands are prefixed with 'ci' or 'cy'.

For more about these areas, see photometry

The improvements we envision in our light curve analysis capabilities depend on the best spectroscopic data obtainable. We have been fortunate to be able to obtain radial velocities using intensified reticon and CCD detectors at DAO for over a decade. Our colleagues and friends at DAO have also helped often and unstintingly. We would like to acknowledge the kindness of DAO's directors Ken Wright, Sidney van den Bergh, and Jim Hesser for making DAO's superb spectroscopic instrumentation available to outside investigators, such as me, and to the staff members who have tried, often heroically, to get badly needed data (Frank Younger, Doug Bond, Les Saddlemyer, and their predecessors, esp., Ed Jakeman). As a result, first class RV data have been acquired over the past quarter century from DAO by many observers as well as by my collaborators and myself, thanks to the generosity of the people at this true center of excellence. Finally, staff members who have freely made their expertise in data reduction available both to us and to other visitors are Graham Hill, Wes Fisher, Peter Stetson, Murray Fletcher, David Crampton, Robert McClure, Stephen Morris, and Dennis Crabtree, among others whom I may have forgotten in this list. Thank you, all!

The use of spectral line profiles in light curve analysis is an even more powerful tool as work by Hill (see Hill & Rucinski 1993) and more recently by Mochnacki asn his students have shown.

My main contribution in RV work in light curve analysis has been to demonstrate the value of intensified images for radial velocity work; the earliest work made use of photographic spectra which were measured on the Arcturus measuring engine at DAO with a variable slit orientation to follow the S-shaped distortion of the spectra. (see, e.g., Naftilan & Milone 1979; 1985). Subsequent work with reticon detectors demonstrated the value of the intensified detection system for short-period variables (see, e.g., Milone et al. 1984; 1985).

In addition to this work, there are further very important uses for spectroscopic data which we hope to develop for light curve analysis in the near future:

1. Well-calibrated time-resolved spectro-photometric data may be used as light curves in the analysis of eclipsing systems;
2. the spectra provide limited information about the atmospheric levels in the star;
3. spectral profile information potentially contain Doppler-imaging information which can be used to correlate brightness variation with velocity fields, to locate sources of light anomalies in the stellar atmospheres, and
4. multi-object spectroscopy to permit spectral studies of cluster stars, esp., variable stars to support the eclipsing and pulsating variable star programs.