MANIA Complex – Hardware and Software for the Investigation of Optical Variability on Time Scales 10 −7 −10 2 s

One of the basic astrophysical problems is the search for and investigation of brightness fluctuations of celestial objects on time scales comparable with the mean time between registered photons. To facilitate this a special mathematical formalism was developed (Shwartsman 1977, Plokhotnichenko 1983). At the Special Astrophysical Observatory, photometric equipment has been developed which allows these ideas to be explored observationally and which also allows to study light curves of astrophysical objects using classical methods. This equipment and these methods are used in the search for and study of variable objects with time resolution 10 −7 s in the MANIA (Multichannel Analysis of Nanosecond Intensity Alterations) experiment. The hardware consists of a photon-counting photometer for synchronous detection in different colour bands, a specialized “time-code” converter (Quantochron 3-16), measuring photon arrival times with an accuracy of 20 ns and a PC AT 386 and DAT-cassette recorder. Our equipment allows the uninterrupted accumulation of 10 8 photocounts with a rate up to 375 kHz without distortions in 2 8 or 2 16 parallel channels (Zhuravkov et al. 1994). The software permits the investigation of variability on time scales 10 −7 − 10 2 s.