Extending and Enhancing the MOSES Survey

Abstract

This thesis outlines a project to enhance and extend the MOSES Survey undertaken at the MHT telescope by [Rambukwella-Gill, 2019]. Through improvements made to the reduction process, treatment of the world coordinate system (WCS), and method used to identify variables in the dataset, the number of variables identified increased from 719 in the first iteration of the survey [Rambukwella-Gill, 2019] to 1495 in the second despite applying a more restrictive magnitude range. In addition, Gaia EDR3 data has been combined with the MOSES data to create a HR-Diagram to aid in the classification of identified variables. Preliminary analysis was performed on a selection of the most variable stars identified, using the Gaia HR-Diagram to provide additional information to aid in the classifications suggested by light curves and periods of variability. We identified 1495 Variable stars. 7 were then analysed closely, and allowed us to classify a Cepheid, an LPV, an RV-Tauri star and three Eclipsing Binaries.