AUTOMATED CCD PHOTOMETRY OF T-TAURI STARS

T Tauri stars have long been known to undergo irregular variations in brightness. Extended monitoring of these pre-main-sequence, solar-type stars is important to understanding the sources of variations. Using an automated telescope at Leuschner Observatory, we have developed a procedure to acquire differential photometry of classical T Tau stars in Taurus and Auriga. It is almost fully automatic, dramatically reducing the time necessary to process the data. We achieved accuracy of 0.02 mag in eight fields containing target stars down to 13th magnitude. Although most of the T Tau stars did vary, we find possible, but not definitive, periods for several targets. The variations in general are complex, but often are correlated over a few days.