Limiting Magnitudes
Point Sources
The plots below all assume that one
is observing in the
background
limited case. The exposure time refers to the total
on-object exposure time. It does
not include either the exposure time on-sky nor any overheads.
- Limiting magnitude versus
on-object integration time, for 0.7" seeing and S/N=3
- Limiting magnitude versus
seeing, for 1 hour on-object integration time and S/N=3
- Limiting magnitude versus
signal-to-noise ratio, for 1 hour on-object integration time and 0.7"
seeing
Extended Sources
The plots below all assume that one
is observing in the
background
limited case. The exposure time refers to the total
on-object exposure time. It does
not include either the exposure time on-sky nor any overheads.
- Limiting magnitude versus
on-object integration time, S/N per arcsec²=3
- Limiting magnitude versus
signal-to-noise ratio per arcsec², for 1 hour on-object
integration time