Related papers: An Inexpensive Field-Widened Monolithic Michelson …
Modern extreme adaptive optics (AO) systems achieving diffraction-limited performance open up new possibilities for instrumentation. Especially important for the fields of spectroscopy and interferometry is that it enables the prospect to…
We present a way to set up an inexpensive out of the shelf spectrograph at a local observatory. Stability and resolution of the spectrograph are high enough for radial velocity determination of binary stars or determination of stellar…
The investigation of the atmospheres of closely separated, directly imaged gas giant exoplanets is challenging due to the presence of stellar speckles that pollute their spectrum. To remedy this, the analysis of medium- to high-resolution…
The Microlensing Planet Finder (MPF) is a proposed Discovery mission that will complete the first census of extrasolar planets with sensitivity to planets like those in our own solar system. MPF will employ a 1.1m aperture telescope, which…
Satellite-based remote sensing has revolutionised the way we address global challenges. Huge quantities of Earth Observation (EO) data are generated by satellite sensors daily, but processing these large datasets for use in ML pipelines is…
Motivated by the order-of-magnitude difference in the frequency of giant planets orbiting M dwarfs inferred by microlensing and radial velocity (RV) surveys, we present a method for comparing the statistical constraints on exoplanet…
A simple, low-cost millimeter-wave (70 GHz) interferometer with a phase accuracy better than plus or minur 2 degrees, and a response time of 10 ns is described. The simplicity of this interferometer makes it ideal for measurement of…
We report on the active stabilization of a Michelson interferometer at an arbitrary phase angle with a precision better than one degree at $\lambda = 632.8$ nm, which corresponds to an optical path difference between the two arms of less…
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…
Context: With no conclusive detection to date, the search for exomoons, satellites of planets orbiting other stars, remains a formidable challenge. Detecting these objects, compiling a population-level sample and constraining their…
Although there exists a large sample of known exoplanets, little spectroscopic data exists that can be used to study their global atmospheric properties. This deficiency can be addressed by performing phase-resolved spectroscopy --…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
The Star Watch extreme-precision astrometry mission (0.1 - 1.0 uas) builds on technology developed, and validated, during the SIM (Space Interferometry Mission) project. The sole science instrument is an optical interferometer with 50-cm…
Fabricating an electrically switchable cylindrical Fresnel lens based on holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (H-PDLC) using a Michelson interferometer is reported. Simplicity of the method and possibility of fabricating different…
We have designed and tested an in-plane echelle spectrograph configured to investigate precision radial velocities from ground-based near-infrared observations. The spectrograph operates across the spectral range of 0.9-1.7 mm at a spectral…
The study of binary stars is critical to apprehend many of the most interesting classes of stars. Moreover, quite often, the study of stars in binary systems is our only mean to constrain stellar properties, such as masses and radii.…
We design and characterize a novel axilens-based diffractive optics platform that flexibly combines efficient point focusing and grating selectivity and is compatible with scalable top-down fabrication based on a 4-level phase mask…
Interferometers usually require long paths for the ever-increasing requirements of high-performance operation, which hinders the miniaturization and integration of photonic circuits into very compact devices. Slow-light based…
Context. Radial velocity monitoring of very cool dwarfs such as late M- and hot L-dwarfs has become a promising tool to search for rocky planets as well as to follow-up planetary candidates around dwarfs found by transit surveys. These…
I describe a method to transform a set of stellar evolution tracks onto a uniform basis and then interpolate within that basis to construct stellar isochrones. The method accommodates a broad range of stellar types, from substellar objects…