Kepler and the Long Period Variables

Abstract

High precision Kepler photometry is used to explore the details of AGB light curves. Since AGB variability has a typical time scale on order of a year we present methods for the removal of long term trends and quarterly changes in Kepler data. While undergoing long period variations of many magnitudes, the light curves are shown to be smooth at the millimagnitude level over much shorter time intervals. No flares or other rapid events were detected down to the sub-day time scale.