Honeycutt proposes to equip an existing 40-cm telescope with a low-noise charge-coupled-device (CCD) for automated photometry of faint interacting binary stars, ranging from Algols to cataclysmic variables and to galactic x-ray sources. Pairs of stars moving about each other often exchange streams of gases, sometimes violently. Often they do so during merely a brief stage in the evolution of one of the stars that can be investigated only by watching such binary stars. Observations of such stars require much time of both telescopes and staff. Honeycutt will construct electronic detectors that will allow automatized observing of binary stars with automatic initial reduction of the data. Even a small telescope can reach very faint stars and thus many more interesting stars than could be reached by previous photographic projects.
