Related papers: A Search for Planets with SALT
Two planetary mass objects in the far outer Solar System --- collectively referred to here as Planet X --- have recently been hypothesized to explain the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper Belt Objects. Neither planet is thought to be…
Long-slit spectroscopy with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) of central stars of mid-infrared nebulae detected with the Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) led to the discovery of numerous…
Traditional lost-in-space algorithms, such as those implemented in astrometry.net, solve for spacecraft orientation by matching observed star fields to celestial catalogs using geometric asterisms alone. In this work, we propose a novel…
Our knowledge of the populations and occurrence rates of planets orbiting evolved intermediate-mass stars lags behind that for solar-type stars by at least a decade. Some radial velocity surveys have targeted these low-luminosity giant…
We develop a general method to fit the planetary distribution function (PLDF) to exoplanet survey data. This maximum likelihood method accommodates more than one planet per star and any number of planet or target star properties.…
We are carrying out a search for planets around a sample of solar twin stars using the HARPS spectrograph. The goal of this project is to exploit the advantage offered by solar twins to obtain chemical abundances of unmatched precision.…
We present a conceptual design for a space based Galactic Exoplanet Survey Telescope (GEST) which will use the gravitational microlensing technique to detect extra solar planets with masses as low as that of Mars at all separations >~ 1 AU.…
An automated search for star clusters close to the Galactic plane (|b| < 5 deg) was carried out on the Point Source Catalogue of the DENIS survey. 44% of the Galactic plane have been observed and calibrated. The method allowed to retrieve…
Thueringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg (TLS) has started to operate a small dedicated telescope - the Tautenburg Exoplanet Search Telescope (TEST) - searching for transits of extrasolar planets in photometric time series observations. In a…
Pioneering photometric, astrometric, and spectroscopic surveys are helping exoplanetary scientists better constrain the fundamental properties of stars within our galaxy, and the planets these stars host. In this study, we use the third…
In the blooming field of exoplanetary science, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of exoplanets. Kepler's very precise and long-duration photometry is ideal for detecting planetary transits around Sun-like…
Neptune-size exoplanets are less studied as characterizing their atmospheres presents challenges due to their relatively small radius and atmospheric scale height. As the most common outcome of planet formation, these planets are crucial…
We report on two major surveys for metal-poor stars in the galactic halo, the HK survey, and the Hamburg/ESO survey, which have been undertaken in order to provide targets for high-resolution spectroscopy with the Subaru HDS and other large…
Early-type main-sequence pulsating stars such as \ds{} variables are one of the least explored class of targets in the search for exoplanets. Pulsation timing (PT) is an alternative technique to the most effective search methods. It…
We cross-correlate positions of galaxies measured in data from the first three years of the Dark Energy Survey with Compton-$y$-maps generated using data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the {\it Planck} mission. We model this…
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence by looking for signals from advanced technological civilizations has been ongoing for some decades. We suggest that it could possibly be made more efficient by focusing on stars from which the…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is an ambitious, multi-institutional project to create a huge digital imaging and spectroscopic data bank of 25% of the celestial sphere, approximately 10,000 deg^2 centred on the north galactic polar cap. The…
The main objective of the Penn State/Torun Centre for Astronomy Search for Planets around Evolved Stars is the detection of planetary systems around massive, evolved stars. We are also interested in the evolution of these systems on stellar…
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 hot Neptune desert, a distinct lack of highly irradiated planets in the size range of Neptune, remains one of the most intriguing results of exoplanet population studies. A deeper understanding of the atmosphere of exoplanets sitting at…