The Pisgah Automated Survey: A Photometric Search for Low‐Mass Detached Eclipsing Binaries and Other Variable Stars

The Pisgah Survey, located at the facilities of the Pisgah AstronomicalResearch Institute in Rosman NC, is a low cost project to acquirefully-automated I band photometry of selected areas of the sky. The surveycollects multiple images of about 16.5 sq. deg. of sky per night, searching forvariability in stars with apparent magnitudes brighter than I = 15. The mainscientific goal of this project is to discover new low-mass detached eclipsingbinaries to provide precise constraints to the mass-radius relation for thelower main sequence. In this paper we present a technical description of the project, includingthe software routines to automate the collection and analysis of the data, anda description of our variable identification strategy. We prove the feasibilityof our technique by showing the successful detection of the previously knownM-dwarf detached eclipsing binary GJ 2069A, and we present the results of theanalysis of the first set of fields imaged by the survey, in which 15 newvariables have been discovered among 8,201 stars monitored. The paper concludeswith an outline of the project's prospects.Comment: 44 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. To appear in the PASP (01/04