Related papers: The web-PLOP observation prioritisation system
A concept of the ground-based optical astronomical observations efficiency is considered in this paper. We believe that a telescope efficiency can be increased by properly allocating observation tasks with respect to the current environment…
We describe the development of a system for an automated, iterative, real-time classification of transient events discovered in synoptic sky surveys. The system under development incorporates a number of Machine Learning techniques, mostly…
The rapid analysis of ongoing gravitational microlensing events has been integral to the successful detection and characterisation of cool planets orbiting low mass stars in the Galaxy. In this paper we present an implementation of search…
We discuss work by the eSTAR project which demonstrates a fully closed loop autonomous system for the follow up of possible micro-lensing anomalies. Not only are the initial micro-lensing detections followed up in real time, but ongoing…
The PHOT (Portable High-Speed Occultation Telescope) systems were developed for the specific purpose of observing stellar occultations by solar system objects. Stellar occultations have unique observing constraints: they may only be…
Microlensing of stars in our Galaxy has long been used to detect and characterize stellar populations, exoplanets, brown dwarfs, stellar remnants and whatever objects may magnify the source stars with their gravitational fields. The…
The Telescope to Observe Planetary Systems (TOPS) is a proposed space mission to image in the visible (0.4-0.9 micron) planetary systems of nearby stars simultaneously in 16 spectral bands (resolution R~20). For the ~10 most favorable…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, $a$ greater than $\sim 1.5 R_E$. Planets in…
The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) will make precise astrometric measurements that can be used to detect planets around nearby stars. Since observational time will be extremely valuable, it is important to consider how the choice of the…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
Large area surveys will dominate the forthcoming decades of astronomy and their success requires characterizing thousands of discoveries through additional observations at higher spatial or spectral resolution, and at complementary cadences…
Autoplot is software developed for the Virtual Observatories in Heliophysics to provide intelligent and automated plotting capabilities for many typical data products that are stored in a variety of file formats or databases. Autoplot has…
We present a machine learning based information retrieval system for astronomical observatories that tries to address user defined queries related to an instrument. In the modern instrumentation scenario where heterogeneous systems and…
Time domain astronomy has emerged as a vibrant research field in recent years, focusing on celestial objects that exhibit variable magnitudes or positions. Given the urgency of conducting follow-up observations for such objects, the…
With the proliferation of online Zoom meetings as a means of doing science in the 2020s, astronomers have made new and unexpected Target of Opportunity (ToO) observations. Chief among these ToOs are observations of exop(lan)ets, or…
To solve multi-step manipulation tasks in the real world, an autonomous robot must take actions to observe its environment and react to unexpected observations. This may require opening a drawer to observe its contents or moving an object…
Detections of transiting planets from the upcoming PLATO mission are expected to face significant contamination from contaminating eclipsing binaries, resulting in false positives. To counter this, a ground-based programme to acquire…
Through the international collaborators, we recently established a network of existing and working meter-class telescopes to look for planetary transit events. As a first step, we focus on the TrES3 system, and conclude that there could be…
Recently, the Deep Planning Network (PlaNet) approach was introduced as a model-based reinforcement learning method that learns environment dynamics directly from pixel observations. This architecture is useful for learning tasks in which…
Galactic microlensing has the capability to determine the position angle of the detected planets in a sky reference frame. By a broad enough statistics, it is possible to investigate possible anisotropies in the distribution of the orbital…