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The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and its successor, the intermediate PTF (iPTF), are wide-field synoptic sky surveys aimed to detect transients. Even though the main science goal for PTF/iPTF is to detect various types of transients, the synoptic nature of the surveys can also be used for the study of variable stars. In this proceedings contribution, I will first give a brief introduction to PTF/iPTF, followed by the two pulsating stars studies using the PTF/iPTF data: the Ultra-Long Period Cepheids (ULPC) in M31 and the RR Lyrae in the Kepler field. For the formal study, we searched the M31’s ULPC using PTF imaging data, and follow up the candidates with other telescopes. Our finding revealed that there are only two ULPC in M31. I will give a brief implication of our finding in distance scale studies. For the latter study, I will present our work on the derivation of metallicity-light curve relation in native PTF/iPTF R-band using the RRab stars in the Kepler field.

The survival analysis is a type of statistical technique to deal with data that has upper or lower limits. In this work, I demonstrate an example of applying the survival analysis to re-derive the Cepheid period-luminosity relation at 70 μ m, because about 2/3 of the currently available data only contains upper limits in flux.

Time series observations for the 41 RR Lyrae stars in Kepler’s fields were carried out in 2010 to 2013 using a number of meter class (or smaller) telescopes. These telescopes include the 1-m and 41-cm telescopes of Lulin Observatory (LOT and SLT respectively, Taiwan), the 81-cm telescope of Tenagra-II Observatory (TNG, Arizona, USA), the 1-m telescope at the Mt. Lemmon Optical Astronomy Observatory (LOAO, Arizona, USA), the 1.8-m and 15-cm telescopes at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO, Korea), and the 61-cm telescope at the Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory (SOAO, Korea). All of these telescopes were equipped with commercial available CCD imagers, and the observations were done in standard BVRI filters. Photometric calibration of the RR Lyrae light curves was done with standard stars listed in Landolt standard stars [1]. Observations of selected Landolt standard stars (centered on SA 107-456 & SA 110-232) in Johnson-Kron-Cousins BVRI filters, spanning three distinct airmasses, were done with the 81-cm Tenagra II telescope on 25 June 2011. Raw imaging data were reduced with IRAF in the same manner as in the case of the RR Lyrae, and astrometric calibrated with astrometry.net [2]. We calibrated BVRI magnitudes for 40 RR Lyrae stars.