Related papers: New absolute magnitude calibrations for detached b…
We first review the current knowledge of Hipparcos systematic and random errors, in particular small-scale correlations. Then, assuming Gaussian parallax errors and using examples from the recent Hipparcos literature, we show how random…
A method of absolute calibration for large aperture optical systems is presented, using the example of the Pierre Auger Observatory fluorescence detectors. A 2.5 m diameter light source illuminated by an ultra--violet light emitting diode…
We present the stellar calibrator sample and the conversion from instrumental to physical units for the 24 micron channel of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS). The primary calibrators are A stars, and the calibration…
We present results on parallaxes, magnitudes and proper motions for 17 optically identified massive X-ray binaries (MXRB) which were observed during the Hipparcos astrometry mission. This sample includes the sources detected in the…
Next-generation synoptic photometric surveys will yield unprecedented (for the astronomical community) volumes of data and the processes of discovery and rare-object identification are, by necessity, becoming more autonomous. Such…
We report on 13 sub-arcsecond binaries, detected by means of lunar occultations in the near-infrared at the ESO Very Large Telescope. They are all first-time detections, except for the visual binary HD~158122 which we resolved for the first…
We present an analysis of a new, detached, double-lined eclipsing binary system with K7 Ve components, discovered as part of the University of New South Wales Extrasolar Planet Search. The object is significant in that only 6 other binary…
The growing ``Hubble tension'' has prompted the need for precise measurements of cosmological distances. This paper demonstrates a purely geometric approach for determining the distance to extragalactic binaries through a joint analysis of…
We present new empirical calibrations of the absolute magnitude of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the optical I and near-infrared J, H, and K bands in terms of the (V-K)_0, (V-H)_0, and (J-K)_0 colors of the red giant branch. Our…
The photometric and spectroscopic data for three double-lined detached eclipsing binaries were collected from the photometric and spectral surveys. The light and radial velocity curves of each binary system were simultaneously analyzed by…
We describe the absolute calibration of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) 160 micron channel. After the on-orbit discovery of a near-IR ghost image that dominates the signal for sources hotter than about 2000 K, we adopted…
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 present determination of the absolute magnitude $M_V(RR)$ of RR Lyrae stars is twofold, relying upon Hipparcos proper motions and trigonometric parallaxes separately. First, applying the statistical parallax method to the proper…
In the era of precision cosmology it is essential to determine the Hubble Constant with an accuracy of 3% or better. Currently, its uncertainty is dominated by the uncertainty in the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) which as the…
We use EDGES measurements to determine scale and zero-level corrections to the diffuse radio surveys by Guzm\'an et al. at $45$ MHz and Landecker & Wielebinski at $150$ MHz. We find that the Guzm\'an et al. map requires a scale correction…
We report the results of new Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the positions of six ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). Using images in three ACS filters we detect good candidate counterparts to four out of six ULXs, with one more possible…
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) fine guidance sensor observations were used to obtain parallaxes of eight metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -1.4) stars. The parallaxes of these stars determined by the revised Hipparcos reduction average 17% accuracy, in…
Using the method of ``reduced parallaxes'' for the Halo RR Lyrae stars in the Hipparcos catalogue we derive a zero point of 0.77 $\pm$ 0.26 mag for an assumed slope of 0.18 in the $M_{\rm V}$-[Fe/H] relation. This is 0.28 magnitude brighter…
We present the strategies adopted in the relative and absolute calibration of two different data sets: U,B,V,I-band images collected with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) mosaic camera mounted on the 2.2m ESO/MPI Telescope and u,v,b,y Stroemgren…
The computation of magnitudes and distances from low signal-to-noise observations is known to be problematic, in the sense that the magnitudes and distances tend to assume extreme values, or are even undefined or unphysical in the case of…