I used to teach a course titled "Observatory Methods". This course covers basic material about telescopes and detectors for optical astronomy, with most of the course devoted to learning about CCD detectors and learning how to use these wonderful devices to make broadband (BVR) optical photometric measurements of astronomical sources.
When I first started to teach this course in 1995, I did not find a book at the appropriate level that covered the material I wished to cover. So, in a fit of insanity, I started to write my own textbook. I have decided to make this book freely available to anyone who wishes to use it, at least at this time. Sometime in the future I may decide to formally publish the book, but that sounds like too much work! (Also, there are now several books available that are somewhat similar to what I have written.)
The latest version of the book, titled "An Introduction to Astronomical Photometry Using CCDs" can be downloaded in PDF format from here. If you need a program to read PDF format documents, you can download a free PDF Reader from www.adobe.com. If you download and use my document, I would appreciate it if you send me an email (wromanishin *insert usual symbol* ou.edu).
In the works: new chapters on "Beyond Seeing: Active Optics". Also hope to have example CCD images.
wrccd22oct06.pdf - 2,085,535 bytes - cleaned up lots of typos and minor problems. Updated list of large telescopes. Added tables of example V magnitudes and B-V colors for educational purposes.
wrccd4a.pdf -- 31 March 2002 - 2,066,879 bytes - draft of Appendix on "Photometry of Moving Objects", added some stuff on field of view and mountings of telescopes
wrccded3.pdf -- 13 June 2001 - 2029119 bytes - added a few graphs, fixed a few minor blunders, not a real big change from wrccded2.pdf
wrccded2.pdf -- 16 Sept 2000 - 2007122 bytes - added appendix C on "Astronomical Literature", fixed typos, rescaled some graphs to fit larger page
wrccded1b.pdf - August 2000 - reformatted to fit in 150 pages, rather than 180.
wrccded1a.pdf - August 2000 - Fixed lots of typos in wrccded1.pdf. Added Appendix B entitled "Ratio Problems". Replaced a number of scanned hand-drawn figures with computer- plotted ones.
wrccded1.pdf- March 2000 - First release in pdf format.