`LightCurve` objects are data objects which encapsulate the brightness of a star over time. They provide a series of common operations, for example folding, binning, plotting, etc. There are a range of subclasses of `LightCurve` objects specific to telescopes, including `KeplerLightCurve` for Kepler and K2 data and `TessLightCurve` for TESS data.
Although *lightkurve* was designed with Kepler, K2 and TESS in mind, these objects can be used for a range of astronomy data.
You can create a `LightCurve` object from a `TargetPixelFile` object using Simple Aperture Photometry (see our tutorial for more information on Target Pixel Files [here]([ Ссылка ]). Aperture Photometry is the simple act of summing up the values of all the pixels in a pre-defined aperture, as a function of time. By carefully choosing the shape of the aperture mask, you can avoid nearby contaminants or improve the strength of the specific signal you are trying to measure relative to the background.
