Photometry, from Greek photo- ("light") and -metry ("measure"), is a technique used

in astronomy that is concerned with measuring the flux or intensity of light

radiated by astronomical objects.[1] This light is measured through a telescope
using a photometer, often made using electronic devices such as a CCD photometer or
a photoelectric photometer that converts light into an electric current by the
photoelectric effect. When calibrated against standard stars (or other light
sources) of known intensity and colour, photometers can measure the brightness or
apparent magnitude of celestial objects.

Kepler Mission space photometer
The methods used to perform photometry depend on the wavelength regime under study.
At its most basic, photometry is conducted by gathering light and passing it
through specialized photometric optical bandpass filters, and then capturing and
recording the light energy with a photosensitive instrument. Standard sets of
passbands (called a photometric system) are defined to allow accurate comparison of
observations.[2] A more advanced technique is spectrophotometry that is measured
with a spectrophotometer and observes both of the amount of radiation and its
detailed spectral distribution.[3]
Photometry is also used in the observation of variable stars,[4] by various
techniques such as, differential photometry that simultaneously measuring the
brightness of a target object and nearby stars in the starfield[5] or relative
photometry by comparing the brightness of the target object to stars with known
fixed magnitudes.[6] Using multiple bandpass filters with relative photometry is
termed absolute photometry. A plot of magnitude against time produces a light
curve, yielding considerable information about the physical process causing the
brightness changes.[7] Precision photoelectric photometers can measure starlight
around 0.001 magnitude.[8]
The technique of surface photometry can also be used with extended objects like
planets, comets, nebulae or galaxies that measures the apparent magnitude in terms
of magnitudes per square arcsecond.[9] Knowing the area of the object and the
average intensity of light across the astronomical object determines the surface
brightness in terms of magnitudes per square arcsecond, while integrating the total
light of the extended object can then calculate brightness in terms of its total
magnitude, energy output or luminosity per unit surface area.