Surface Photometry Surveys of Galaxies with Small Telescopes

Surface photometry of relatively bright galaxies is now becoming almost an exclusive province of small telescopes equipped with CCDs. I give a brief review of the scientific possibilities and problems of interest in this field. Small telescopes become tools of observational cosmology: they can provide large amounts of data necessary for the further understanding of fundamental properties of galaxies, clues to their formation, and their interactions with environment.