A High-Speed, Dual-Ccd Imaging Photometer

The SNAPSHOT is a high-speed, dual-CCD imaging photometer, with special capability for occultation observations. It is capable of recording occultation light curves in the presence of bright, nonuniform background illumination, such as occultations of stars by Saturn's rings or by comets. Such events are difficult or impossible to observe with conventional photometers. The fundamental idea that makes high time-resolution observations possible is to reduce the data rate by digitizing only those pixels in subframes containing the objects of interest.