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We illustrate a method for estimating the vertical position of the Sun above the Galactic plane by $\gamma$-ray observations. Photons of $\gamma$-ray wavelengths are particularly well suited for geometrical and kinematic studies of the…
We derive analytic, closed-form solutions for the light curve of a planet transiting a star with a limb darkening profile which is a polynomial function of the stellar elevation, up to arbitrary integer order. We provide improved analytic…
The Sun is an extraordinary workbench, from which several fundamental astronomical parameters can be measured with high precision. Among these parameters, the solar radius $R_{\odot}$ plays an important role in several aspects, such as in…
Calculations are presented detailing the gravitational lens diffraction due to the steep brightness gradient of the limb of a stellar source. The lensing case studied is the fold caustic crossing. The limb diffraction signal greatly exceeds…
We have observed the south-east (SE) limb of the Cygnus Loop with {\it Suzaku}. Our spatially-resolved spectroscopic study shows that a one-$kT_\mathrm{e}$ non-equilibrium ionization model represents our spectra fairly well. We find that…
Most commercially available Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)s measure the distances along a 2D section of the environment by sequentially sampling the free range along directions centered at the sensor's origin. When the sensor moves…
Interferometers from the ground and space will be able to resolve the two images in a microlensing event. This will at least partially lift the inherent degeneracy between physical parameters in microlensing events. To increase the…
The Moon's optical characteristics in visible and long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) have long been observed with our eyes or with instruments. What the mid-infrared (MIR) Moon looks like is still a mystery. For the first time we present…
The drag-free satellites of LISA will maintain the test masses in geodesic motion over many years with residual accelerations at unprecedented small levels and time delay interferometry (TDI) will keep track of their differential positions…
To determine the local dark matter density (LDMD) of the solar system is a classical problem in astronomy. Recently, a novel method of determining the LDMD from stellar distribution and vertical velocity dispersion profiles perpendicular to…
Determination of the lithium depletion boundary (LDB), i.e., the observational limit below which the cores of very low-mass objects do not reach high enough temperature for Li destruction, has been used to obtain ages for several open…
Microturbulence (\xi) is a key parameter introduced in stellar spectroscopy to explain the strength of saturated lines by formally incorporating an additional thermal broadening term in the line opacity profile. Although our Sun can serve…
The Ly-alpha luminosity function (LF) of high-redshift Ly-alpha emitters (LAEs) is one of the few observables of the re-ionization epoch accessible to date with 8-10 m class telescopes. The evolution with redshift allows one to constrain…
In this note we mainly explore the possibility of measuring the action of the intrinsic gravitomagnetic field of the rotating Earth on the orbital motion of the Moon with the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) technique. Expected improvements in it…
One of the most energetic bolide events in recent decades was detected by the US Government sensors (USGS) over remote areas of the Bering Sea on December 18, 2018, 23:48 UT. No ground-based optical observations exist. Using the satellite…
Launch of the Gaia space observatory started a new era in astrometry when the accuracy of star coordinates increased by thousands of times. Significant improvement of accuracy was also expected for the coordinates of the Solar system…
We report on new measurements of the luminosity function (LF) and mass function (MF) of field low-mass dwarfs derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6 (DR6) photometry. The analysis incorporates ~15 million low-mass stars…
A body in Solar orbit beyond the Kuiper belt exhibits an annual parallax that exceeds its apparent proper motion by up to many orders of magnitude. Apparent motion of this body along the parallactic ellipse will deflect the angular position…
White dwarf cooling sequences provides a useful indicator of the evolutionary time scales involved in the chronometry and star formation history of the galactic disk and, for this reason, the luminosity function of white dwarfs has become a…
To evaluate site quality and to develop multi-conjugative adaptive optics systems for future large solar telescopes, characterization of contributions to seeing from heights up to at least 12 km above the telescope is needed. We describe a…