Related papers: Ground-based variability surveys towards Centaurus…
This paper compares the performance of two different high-precision, photometric measurement techniques for bright (<11 magnitude) stars using the small telescope systems that today's amateur astronomers typically use. One technique is…
We present the results of our search for variable stars using the long-term Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) monitoring of white dwarf ZTF J0139+5245 with the two 1.0-m telescope nodes located at McDonald Observatory using the Sinistro imaging…
Clouds and other features in exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres cause variations in brightness as they rotate in and out of view. Ground-based instruments reach the high contrasts and small inner working angles needed to monitor these…
A space-based gravitational microlensing exoplanet survey will provide a statistical census of exoplanets with masses down to 0.1 Earth-masses and orbital separations ranging from 0.5AU to infinity. This includes analogs to all the Solar…
The stellar mass-luminosity relation is poorly constrained by observations for high mass stars. We describe our program to find eclipsing massive binaries in the Magellanic Clouds using photometry of regions rich in massive stars, and our…
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has an exceptionally large plate scale of 21"/px, causing most TESS light curves to record the blended light of multiple stars. This creates a danger of misattributing variability observed by…
Simultaneous space- and ground-based microlensing surveys, such as K2's Campaign 9 (K2C9) and $WFIRST$, facilitate measuring the masses and distances of free-floating planet (FFP) candidates. FFPs are identified as single-lens events with a…
The Chinese Small Telescope ARray (CSTAR) is the first telescope facility built at Dome A, Antarctica. During the 2008 observing season, the installation provided long-baseline and high-cadence photometric observations in the i-band for…
The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project is a photometric and spectroscopic survey from which we select relatively blue stars (V-R<0.30 mag) as probes of the Milky Way halo. The Survey strip spans the range of Galactic latitude 35<b<88 deg,…
In this paper, we explore the astrophysical implications of near-field microlensing and its effects on stellar transit observations, with a special emphasis on the Kepler mission. Kepler is a NASA-approved mission whose goal is to detect a…
We present an analysis on the potential prevalence of mid infrared excesses in stars with and without planetary companions. Based on an extended database of stars detected with the ${\it WISE}$ satellite, we studied two stellar samples: one…
JWST observed our closest solar twin, $\alpha$ Cen A, with the MIRI coronagraph in F1550C (15.5 $\mu$m) at three distinct epochs between August 2024 and April 2025. For the first time with JWST, we demonstrate the application of reference…
The first directly imaged exoplanets indicated that wide-orbit giant planets could be more common around A-type stars. However, the relatively small number of nearby A-stars has limited the precision of exoplanet demographics studies to…
The rich absorption spectra of Sun-like stars are enticing probes for variations in the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$, which gauges the strength of electromagnetism. While individual line wavelengths are sensitive to $\alpha$, they are…
In this paper we investigate the properties of astrometric microlensing of distant radio sources (QSOs and radio galaxies) due to MACHOs, and discuss their implications for VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). First we show that in…
This paper presents a new strategy for observing faint galaxies with high order natural guide star systems. We have imaged 5 high galactic latitude fields within the isoplanatic patch of bright stars (8.5 < R < 10.3 mag). The fields provide…
The stellar evolution theory of massive stars remains uncalibrated with high-precision photometric observational data mainly due to a small number of luminous stars that are monitored from space. Automated all-sky surveys have revealed…
With several detections, the technique of gravitational microlensing has proven useful for studying planets that orbit stars at Galactic distances, and it can even be applied to detect planets in neighbouring galaxies. So far, planet…
The direct detection of exoplanets has been the subject of intensive research in the recent years. Data obtained with future high-contrast imaging instruments optimized for giant planets direct detection are strongly limited by the speckle…
(Abridged) Aims: Systematic surveys to search for exoplanets have been mostly dedicated to solar-type stars sofar. We developed in 2004 a method to extend such searches to earlier A-F type dwarfs and started spectroscopic surveys to search…