The AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS)

The AAVSO has been funded by the Robert Martin Ayers Sciences Fund to perform a wide-field, all-sky photometric survey. The survey will be conducted in the Johnson B and V and Sloan g', r' and i' filters, and primarily cover the 10-17th magnitude range. The brightness range was specifically chosen to complement the UCAC astrometric catalog. Precise, reliable standardized photometry for this magnitude range is in high demand and would allow many research programs to quickly establish transformations between systems and efficiently achieve conversion of photometry to more fundamental physical properties. Initial tests of the survey system are underway in New Mexico, with the far northern declinations to be covered during 2009 and the remainder of the sky to be observed from Chile in 2010. The paper will present test information regarding the equipment, data pipelines for processing the 20GB/day data flow, time-lines for data products, and will describe how to access the photometry from the AAVSO web site as it becomes available.