Related papers: LGS AO Science Impact: Present and Future Perspect…
The highest resolution images ever taken in the visible were obtained by combining Lucky Imaging and low order adaptive optics. This paper describes a new instrument to be deployed on the WHT 4.2m and GTC 10.4 m telescopes on La Palma, with…
The present H.E.S.S. II era of the H.E.S.S. collaboration follows from the successful upgrade of the H.E.S.S. array, and the first published results obtained with this new instrument. Thanks to these achievements, a lower energy threshold…
Adaptive optics (AO) is a powerful tool employed across various research fields, from aerospace to microscopy. Traditionally, AO has focused on correcting optical phase aberrations, with recent advances extending to polarisation…
Technical discussions of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) sensitivity often focus on its effective sensitivity to gravitational waves in a given band; nevertheless, the goal of the LIGO Project is to ``do…
Astronomical adaptive optics systems are used to increase effective telescope resolution. However, they cannot be used to observe the whole sky since one or more natural guide stars of sufficient brightness must be found within the…
(Abridged) We consider the scientific case for a large aperture (10-12m class) optical spectroscopic survey telescope with a field of view comparable to that of LSST. Such a facility could enable transformational progress in several areas…
The Lense-Thirring effect is currently being measured by means of a combination of the orbital residuals of the nodes of LAGEOS and LAGEOS II and the perigee of LAGEOS II. The total error is of the order of 20%. The most insidious…
I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting areas and observing time/astronomer are only possible if we…
The future generation of telescopes will be equipped with multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) systems in order to obtain high angular resolution over large fields of view. MCAO comes in two flavors: star- and layer-oriented. Existing…
The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) is one of the most productive and influential photometric sky surveys in the history of observational astronomy. Originally designed to detect dark matter through gravitational…
Starting in the 1970s, the Arecibo 305m telescope has made seminal contributions in the field of extragalactic spectroscopy. With the Gregorian upgrade completed in the late 1990s, the telescope acquired a field of view. Population of that…
The last seven years have seen an explosion in the number of Integral Field galaxy surveys, obtaining resolved 2D spectroscopy, especially at high-redshift. These have taken advantage of the mature capabilities of 8-10 m class telescopes…
Earth observation (EO) is a prime instrument for monitoring land and ocean processes, studying the dynamics at work, and taking the pulse of our planet. This article gives a bird's eye view of the essential scientific tools and approaches…
The European Extremely Large Telescope will see first lights by the end of 2024. With a diameter of almost 40 meters, it will be the biggest optical telescope ever built from the ground. The ELT will open a brand new window in a sensitivity…
Next-generation cosmological surveys will observe larger cosmic volumes than ever before, enabling us to access information on the primordial Universe, as well as on relativistic effects. We consider forthcoming 21cm intensity mapping…
Deep observations of the Universe, usually as a part of sky surveys, are one of the symbols of the modern astronomy because they can allow big collaborations, exploiting multiple facilities and shared knowledge. The new generation of…
This paper aims at giving an update on the most versatile adaptive optics fed instrument to date, the well known and successful NACO . Although NACO is only scheduled for about two more years at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), it keeps on…
(Abridged) The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is currently by far the most ambitious proposed ground-based optical survey. The main science themes that drive the LSST system design are Dark Energy and Matter, the Solar System…
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the effective beginning of large, systematic redshift surveys of galaxies. These surveys have had a major impact on observational cosmology and on our current understanding of large-scale structures…
AOLI (Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager) is a state-of-art instrument that combines adaptive optics (AO) and lucky imaging (LI) with the objective of obtaining diffraction limited images in visible wavelength at mid- and big-size ground-based…