TAOS variable stars

These sky survey data-covering timescales from a fraction of a second to a few hundred days-are a useful source to study stellar variability. A total of 167 star fields, mostly along the ecliptic plane, have been selected for photometric monitoring with the TAOS telescopes.

This paper presents our initial analysis of a search for periodic variable stars from the time-series TAOS data on one particular TAOS field, No. 151 (RA=17:30:6.7, DE=27:27:30, J2000), which had been observed over 47 epochs in 2005. A total of 81 candidate variables are identified in the 3deg^2^ field, with magnitudes in the range 8<R<16. On the basis of the periodicity and shape of the light curves, 29 variables, 15 of which were previously unknown, are classified as RR Lyrae, Cepheid, delta Scuti, SX Phonencis, semi-regular, and eclipsing binaries.