Devising a method for determining the aperture brightness of an object using a typical shape of its image

Abstract

The object of this study is the aperture brightness of the image of the object, which has a variety of typical shapes in the frames of the series. It directly depends on the stability of the shooting conditions of the objects under study. Thus, determining the exact aperture brightness of an object in the frame becomes more difficult. For this purpose, a method was devised for determining the aperture brightness of an object using the typical shape of its image on a series of frames. This method is based on the formation of a typical shape of a digital image of an object based on data from all frames of the series. The typical shape makes it possible to take into account the peculiarities of the formation of the image of the object on each frame of the series. Based on this, a more accurate estimate of the initial approximation of the parameters of all Gaussian images of the object is performed. In addition, the adaptation of the method to the standard shape makes it possible to perform a more accurate assessment of the aperture brightness of the object in comparison with the analytically defined profile. An estimate of the aperture brightness of the object was derived using the least squares method. Due to minimization using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, the use of the method improved identification with reference objects and reduced the number of false positives. The study showed a decrease in the standard deviation of frame identification errors by 5–7 times when using a typical shape of a digital image. The devised method for determining an object's aperture brightness using its image's typical shape was tested in practice within the framework of the CoLiTec project. It was implemented in the intra-frame processing unit of the CoLiTecVS software for the automated construction of brilliance curves of the studied variable stars. Owing to the use of the CoLiTecVS software and the proposed computational method implemented in it, more than 700,000 measurements of various objects under study were successfully processed and identified