Related papers: The Kepler Pixel Response Function
We introduce a novel framework for upsampled Point Spread Function (PSF) modeling using pixel-level Bayesian inference. Accurate PSF characterization is critical for precision measurements in many fields including: weak lensing, astrometry,…
NASA's \textit{Kepler} primary mission observed about 116 $deg^2$ in the sky for 3.5 consecutive years to discover Earth-like exoplanets. This mission recorded pixel cutouts, known as Target Pixel Files (TPFs), of over $200,000$ targets…
Kepler's immense photometric precision to date was maintained through satellite stability and precise pointing. In this white paper, we argue that image modeling--fitting the Kepler-downlinked raw pixel data--can vastly improve the…
Image subtraction in astronomy is a tool for transient object discovery and characterization, particularly useful in wide fields, and is well suited for moving or photometrically varying objects such as asteroids, extra-solar planets and…
The Kepler Mission Science Operations Center (SOC) performs several critical functions including managing the ~156,000 target stars, associated target tables, science data compression tables and parameters, as well as processing the raw…
(Abridged) NASA's Kepler mission has provided several thousand transiting planet candidates, yet only a small subset have been confirmed as true planets. Therefore, the most fundamental question about these candidates is the fraction of…
Photometry from the Kepler mission is optimized to detect small, short duration signals like planet transits at the expense of long-term trends. This long-term variability can be recovered in photometry from the Full Frame Images (FFIs), a…
Never before has the detection and characterization of exoplanets via transit photometry been as promising and feasible as it is now, due to the increasing breadth and sensitivity of time domain optical surveys. Past works have made use of…
The fine precision of photometric data available from missions like Kepler provide researchers with the ability to measure changes in light on the order of tens of parts per million (ppm). This level of precision allows researchers to…
Upcoming space-based photometric satellites offer the possibility of detecting continuum flux variability at the micro-magnitude level. We show that the Doppler flux variability induced by the reflex motion of stars due to planetary…
Kepler will monitor a sufficient number of stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the exquisite Kepler photometry of such transits with precise…
While the mission's primary goal was focused on exoplanet detection and characterization, Kepler made and continues to make extraordinary advances in stellar physics. Stellar rotation and magnetic activity are no exceptions. Kepler allowed…
In this work we empirically measure the detection efficiency of Kepler pipeline used to create the final Kepler Threshold Crossing Event (TCE; Twicken et al. 2016) and planet candidate catalogs (Thompson et al. 2018), a necessary ingredient…
We present the implementation and use of algorithms for matching point-spread functions (PSFs) within the Pan-STARRS Image Processing Pipeline (IPP). PSF-matching is an essential part of the IPP for the detection of supernovae and…
Stellar surface processes represent a fundamental limit to the detection of extrasolar planets with the currently most heavily-used techniques. As such, considerable effort has gone into trying to mitigate the impact of these processes on…
Kepler and K2 data analysis reported in the literature is mostly based on aperture photometry. Because of Kepler's large, undersampled pixels and the presence of nearby sources, aperture photometry is not always the ideal way to obtain…
The first step toward doing high-precision astrometry is the measurement of individual stars in individual images, a step that is fraught with dangers when the images are undersampled. The key to avoiding systematic positional error in…
An undersampled point spread function may interact with the microstructure of a solid-state detector such that the total flux detected can depend sensitively on where the PSF center falls within a pixel. Such intra-pixel sensitivity…
Kepler Mission results are rapidly contributing to fundamentally new discoveries in both the exoplanet and asteroseismology fields. The data returned from Kepler are unique in terms of the number of stars observed, precision of photometry…
Pixel lensing, gravitational microlensing of unresolved stars, is potentially much more sensitive and much more widely applicable than is generally recognized. I give explicit expressions for the pixel noise induced by a time-variable PSF,…