Related papers: Variable stars magnitudes estimations exploiting t…

MEDEA is a software architecture to detect luminosity variations connected with the discovery of new planet outside the Solar System. Taking into account the enormous number of stars to monitor for our aim traditional approaches are very…

The Doppler effect is commonly used to infer the velocity difference between stars based on the relative shifts in the rest-frame wavelengths of their spectral features. In dynamically-cold systems with a low velocity dispersion, such as…

Very massive stars (VMS) are defined as stars with an initial mass in excess of 100 Msun. Because of their short lifetime and the shape of the stellar mass function, they are rare objects. Only about twenty of them are known in the Galaxy…

We propose a new method that can be used to constrain the properties of the Galactic bar (bulge). If the majority of the lensing objects are in the Galactic bar, then we predict a systematic offset in the apparent magnitude between lensed…

We show that for a transiting exoplanet accompanied by a moon which also transits, the absolute masses and radii of the star, planet and moon are determinable. For a planet-star system, it is well known that the density of the star is…

Massive stars are at the core of our observations of the Universe up to the reionization epoch, both through their intense ionizing fluxes and through the energetic end products that release fresh elements into the interstellar medium. Our…

Stars are usually faint point sources and investigating their surfaces and interiors observationally is very demanding. Here I give a review on the state-of-the-art observing techniques and recent results on studying interiors and surface…

The Sun and stars with low magnetic activity levels, become photometrically brighter when their activity increases. Magnetically more active stars display the opposite behaviour and get fainter when their activity increases. We reproduce…

We consider strong gravitational lensing by nearby stars. Using our wave-optical treatment of lensing phenomena, we study Einstein rings that may form around nearby stellar lenses. It is remarkable that these rings are bright and large…

We introduce a new method to determine the relative contributions of different types of stars to the integrated light of nearby early-type galaxies. As is well known, the surface brightness of these galaxies shows pixel-to-pixel…

This project outlines the complete development of a variable star classification algorithm methodology. With the advent of Big-Data in astronomy, professional astronomers are left with the problem of how to manage large amounts of data, and…

Most current astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems rely on the availability of a bright star to measure the distortion of the incoming wavefront. Replacing the guide star with an artificial laser beacon alleviates this dependency on…

The correct interpretation of the large amount of complex data from next-generation (in particular, space-based) observational facilities requires a very strong theoretical underpinning. One can thus predict that in the near future the use…

We describe several projects addressing the growth of galaxies and massive black holes, for which adaptive optics is mandatory to reach high spatial resolution but is also a challenge due to the lack of guide stars and long integrations. In…

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…

For suitable gravitational lens systems with unknown lens redshifts, the redshifts and brightnesses (in different colours) of the lenses are predicted for a variety of cosmological models, for both elliptical and spiral galaxy lenses.…

We would like to investigate the information contained in our observations and to what extent each of them contributes individually to constraining the physical parameters of the system we are investigating. To do this, we present a study…

Stellar evolution models are a cornerstone of young star astrophysics, which necessitates that they yield accurate and reliable predictions of stellar properties. Here, I review the current performance of stellar evolution models against…

The theory of General Relativity deals with very accurate measurements that show significant divergences from Newtonian predictions only with speeds near to the velocity of light. An introduction for educational purposes, based on naked eye…

For 30 years, cyclical wind variability in OB stars has puzzled the astronomical community. Phenomenological models involving co-rotating bright spots provide a potential explanation for the observed variations, but the underlying physics…