expose.param: 15.0 ! magnitude limit 100.0 ! S/N 5.0 ! Photometry aperture (radius in arcsec) 0.61 ! Effective Telescope Diameter (meters) 15 ! Readnoise (e- rms) 0.57 ! plate scale (arcsec/pix) 0.7 ! Wavelength independent throughput qe.TEK24 ! CCD quantum efficiency file (list: UBVRI JHK griz) sky.SC ! Sky brightness file (list: UBVRI JHK griz) expose output: # S/N = 100.00 # photometry aperture = 78.54 (arcsec^2) # telescope area = 0.29 (m^2) # read noise = 15.00 (e-/pix) # plate scale = 0.57 (acrsec/pix) # photons/ # Band m^2-sec sky e m(lim) t(rn)[sec] t(snr)[sec] # (m=0) U 0.410E+10 20.80 0.070 15.00 0.471E+03 0.372E+03 B 0.142E+11 21.50 0.140 15.00 0.785E+02 0.519E+02 V 0.879E+10 20.30 0.280 15.00 0.474E+02 0.453E+02 R 0.107E+11 19.50 0.350 15.00 0.221E+02 0.339E+02 I 0.732E+10 18.40 0.175 15.00 0.328E+02 0.145E+03 NOTE that expose.f uses two input lists: qe.TEK24 and sky.SC. These currently contain VERY rough guesses for the detector QE and sky brightness. The column headed 't(rn)[sec]' gives the time to reach background or source limit on a given exposure. In general, your exposures should be several times this value, all else being equal (e.g. if guiding/tracking is not an issue). The column headed 't(snr)[sec]' gives the total time to reach the specified S/N.