Related papers: Calibration of photometry from the Gemini Multi-Ob…
Measuring blackbody parameters for objects hotter than a few 10^4K with optical data alone is common in many astrophysical studies. However this process is prone to large errors because at those temperatures the optical bands are mostly…
We present a new procedure for photometric parallax estimation. The data for 1236 stars provide calibrations between the absolute magnitude offset from the Hyades main-sequence and the UV-excess for different (B-V)o colour-index intervals,…
The ability to constrain dark energy from the evolution of galaxy cluster counts is limited by the imperfect knowledge of cluster redshifts. Ongoing and upcoming surveys will mostly rely on redshifts estimated from broad-band photometry…
Accurate photometric redshifts are among the key requirements for precision weak lensing measurements. Both the large size of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the existence of large spectroscopic redshift samples that are…
Large ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics (AO) systems have ushered in a new era of high-resolution infrared photometry and astrometry. Relative astrometric accuracies of <0.2 mas have already been demonstrated from…
We have developed the techniques required to use the optimal photometry algorithm of Naylor (1998) to create colour-magnitude diagrams with well defined completeness functions. To achieve this we first demonstrate that the optimal…
One of the key science goals for a diffraction limited imager on an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is the resolution of individual stars down to faint limits in distant galaxies. The aim of this study is to test the proposed capabilities…
We calibrate spectrophotometric optical spectra of 32 stars commonly used as standard stars, referenced to 14 stars already on the HST-based CALSPEC flux system. Observations of CALSPEC and non-CALSPEC stars were obtained with the SuperNova…
A near-infrared telescope with an effective aperture diameter of thirty millimeters has been developed. The primary objective of the development is to observe northern bright stars in the $J$, $H$, and $K_{\rm s}$ bands and provide accurate…
The Gemini Observatory is planning to implement a Multi Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) System as a facility instrument for the Gemini-South telescope. The system will include 5 Laser Guide Stars, 3 Natural Guide Stars, and 3 Deformable…
The ESA HIPPARCOS satellite has provided astrometry of unprecedented accuracy, allowing to reassess, improve and refine the pre-HIPPARCOS luminosity calibrations. We review the "classical" absolute magnitude calibrations with the…
Calibration uncertainties have been the leading systematic uncertainty in recent analyses using type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) to measure cosmological parameters. To improve the calibration, we present the application of Spectral Energy…
This work introduces a method that applies images of the extended bodies in the solar system to spacecraft camera calibration. The extended bodies consist of planets and moons that are well-modeled by triaxial ellipsoids. When imaged, the…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) has as its science instrument an infrared integral field spectrograph/polarimeter (IFS). Integral field spectrographs are scientificially powerful but require sophisticated data reduction systems. For GPI to…
Current cosmological analyses which use Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) observations combine SN samples to expand the redshift range beyond that of a single sample and increase the overall sample size. The inhomogeneous photometric calibration…
The ability of NICMOS to perform high accuracy polarimetry is currently hampered by an uncalibrated residual instrumental polarization at a level of 1.2-1.5%. To better quantify and characterize this residual we obtained observations of…
We present a new calibration of the seven-color Vilnius system in terms of [Fe/H], applicable to F-M stars in the metallicity range -2.8<[Fe/H]<+0.5. We employ a purely empirical approach, based on ~1000 calibrating stars with…
Surface brightness-colour relations (SBCRs) are used to derive the stellar angular diameters from photometric observations. They have various astrophysical applications, such as the distance determination of eclipsing binaries or the…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility, extreme adaptive optics (AO), coronagraphic instrument, currently being integrated onto the 8-meter Gemini South telescope, with the ultimate goal of directly imaging extrasolar planets. To…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a near-infrared instrument that uses Adaptive Optics (AO), a coronagraph, and advanced data processing techniques to achieve very high contrast images of exoplanets. The GPI Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) is a…