Sonneberg Sky Patrol Archive - Photometric Analysis

Abstract: The Sonneberg Sky Patrol archive so far has not yet been analyzed systematically. In this paper we present first steps towards an automated photometric analysis aiming at the search for variable stars and transient phenomena like novae. Early works on the sky patrol plates showed that photometric accuracy can be enhanced with fitting algorithms. The procedure used was a manually supported click-and-fit-routine, not suitable for automatic analysis of vast amount of photographic plates. We will present our progress on deconvolution of overlapping sources on the plates and compare photometric analysis using different methods. Our goal is to get light curves of sufficient quality from sky patrol plates, which can be classified with machine learning algorithms. The development of an automated scheme for finding transient events is in progress and the first results are very promising.