The statistics of the photometric accuracy based on MASS data and the evaluation of high-altitude wind

The effect of stellar scintillation on the accuracy of photometric measurements is analyzed. We obtain a convenient form of estimaton of this effect in the long exposure regime, when the turbulence shift produced by the wind is much larger than the aperture of the telescope. A simple method is proposed to determine index S ₃ introduced by Kenyon et al. (2006), directly from the measurements with the Multi Aperture Scintillation Sensor (MASS) without information on vertical profile of the wind. The statistics S ₃ resulting from our campaign of 2005–2007 at Maidanak observatory is presented. It is shown that these data can be used to estimate high-altitude winds at pressure level 70–100 mbar. Comparison with the wind speed retrieved from the NCEP/NCAR global models shows a good agreement. Some prospects for retrieval of the wind speed profile from the MASS measurements are outlined.