IR Variability/Hoard and Howell

Variability of the Mid-IR Sky: Using archival Spitzer Space Telescope data to look for variability of stars at mid-infrared wavelengths.

The variability of stars, especially at rapid time scales, in the mid-infrared wavelength region has had limited investigations and has not been thoroughly explored. By using archival Spitzer data, our science team would like to explore the variability of stars at mid-infrared wavelengths. We will examine images obtained in the 3-8 micron range and will produce photometric measurements for each point source measured.

We have developed criteria for selecting aperiodic candidates which includes the length of time, the filter type, position, galactic longitude and latitude, and the integration time. Utilizing DS9 and APT, three target fields were selected and we will use IRAF at SSC to further examine the images at different wavelengths, create light curves, and compare color differences. If variable stars are found, we can compare with data from one of the other wavelengths previously obtained such as x-ray all sky surveys, VLA FIRST, etc., to further classify the variable stars.