See the Light from a Black Hole

An article on Space.com got me thinking about an experiment for the fall:
https://www.space.com/31532-black-hole-visible-light-telescope-discovery.html

Visible Light from a Black Hole Spotted by Telescope, a First Scientists have spotted dim visible light from the region around a black hole, light that can be seen even by stargazers with a medium-size telescope.www.space.com

The star V404 Cyg varies from magnitude 11.2-18.8 over 100 seconds to 150 minutes. Thats out of reach of small scope, but an 8″ or larger scope should be able to see some of the light curve and a sensitive camera attached to a scope should be able to see it all. It’s a unique thing to observe and you should see the swing from bright to dim in one observing session!

My Experiment

I’m going to experiment with my IOTA camera system and 8″ scope to see if I can record the light levels of V404. I’m not sure I can record the star at its dimmest with my system, but we’ll see. Once the camera records the video, the IOTA software will generate a light curve for each frame. Here’s an example from an occultation where an asteroid blocks the light of a star briefly:

The light curve from a much longer observation of V404 would have tightly packed dots that would probably trend up or down across the page. At least that’s my hope!