Stellar Variability in Ground-Based Photometric Surveys: An Overview

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development and impact of ground-based photometric surveys on understanding stellar variability, highlighting challenges, survey types, and future prospects.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of ground-based photometric surveys, discussing historical progress, current challenges, and future directions in studying variable stars.

Findings

Ground-based surveys have significantly advanced knowledge of variable stars.

Challenges include observational limitations and data analysis complexities.

Future surveys will expand the understanding of stellar variability.

Abstract

Time-resolved ground-based surveys in general, and photometric ones in particular, have played a crucial role in building up our knowledge of the properties, physical nature, and the very existence of the many different classes of variable stars and transient events that are currently known. Here I provide a brief overview of these developments, discussing some of the stumbling blocks that had to be overcome along the way, and others that may still hamper further progress in the area. A compilation of different types of past, present, and future surveys is also provided.