Testing a New Method of Detecting RR Lyrae Variable Stars

We have submitted for publication a new method of selecting candidate RR Lyrae stars using out-of-phase single epoch photometric and spectroscopic observations contained in SDSS Data Release 6 (DR6). The technique detects variability by exploiting the large disparity between the (g - r) color and the strength of the Hydrogen Balmer lines when the two observations are made at random phase. The SDSS Stripe 82 allowed us to show that our method has a discovery efficiency of $\sim $85{\%}. This technique has yielded over 1,000 candidates fainter than g = 14.5. We present the results of observations of several of these candidates made on the 0.8m telescope at McDonald Observatory, with 10 of 11 confirmed as variable and one labeled as a likely RRc. We also examine the use of clumping in the suspected variables to probe galactic structure, both known and new.