I have a dataset of a binary star system's magnitudes taken over the past decade, obtained from AAVSO. These magnitudes are reported in B,V,R,I, and so on. Some magnitudes have their V magnitudes given, which are the Johnson V magnitudes. Other magnitudes, however, are taken in the 'Vis' band. Aren't these two bands the same? Doesn't the V in Johnson's classification stand for the visual band, centered at 551nm? AAVSO's website differentiates between Vis and V without providing an explanation. How do I resolve these magnitudes? Is there a way to convert a V magnitude to a Vis magnitude?
1 Answer
For AASVO, Vis refers to estimates made visually by an observers eyeball. The best observers get to 0.1 magnitude accuracy, but mostly 0.2. V is for the V band in the Cousins/Johnson system.
If you have a lightcurve with both measurements, there will be just an offset between the 2 measures , Unless the variables' color changes at lot. I have not heard of anybody that bothers doing a full transformation.
Note Red stars are trickier to estimate visually. The longer you look the brighter they look (the Purkinje effect).