Title: Optimization of exposure time division for wide field observations,
Abstract: The optical observations of wide fields of view encounter the problem of
selection of best exposure time. As there are usually plenty of objects
observed simultaneously, the quality of photometry of the brightest ones is
always better than of the dimmer ones. Frequently all of them are equally
interesting for the astronomers and thus it is desired to have all of them
measured with the highest possible accuracy.
In this paper we present a novel optimization algorithm dedicated for the
division of exposure time into sub-exposures, which allows to perform
photometry with more balanced noise budget. Thanks to the proposed technique,
the photometric precision of dimmer objects is increased at the expense of the
measurement fidelity of the brightest ones. We tested the method on real
observations using two telescope setups demonstrating its usefulness and good
agreement with the theoretical expectations. The main application of our
approach is a wide range of sky surveys, including the ones performed by the
space telescopes. The method can be applied for planning virtually any
photometric observations, in which the objects of interest show a wide range of
magnitudes.