Related papers: Eclipse, solar limb darkening function and diamete…
We present a method that employs the secondary eclipse light curves of transiting extrasolar planets to probe the spatial variation of their thermal emission. This technique permits an observer to resolve the surface of the planet without…
We compute the emergent stellar spectra from the UV to far infrared for different viewing angles using realistic 3D model atmospheres for a large range in stellar parameters to predict the stellar limb darkening. We have computed full 3D…
The apparent brightness of satellites is calculated as a function of satellite position as seen by a ground-based observer in darkness. Both direct illumination of the satellite by the Sun as well as indirect illumination due to reflection…
We analyze the light curves of the recent solar eclipses measured by the Herzberg channel (200-220 nm) of the Large Yield RAdiometer (LYRA) onboard PROBA-2. The measurements allow us to accurately retrieve the center- to-limb variations…
Gravitational Microlensing has been used as a powerful tool for astrophysical studies and exoplanet detections. In the gravitational microlensing, we have two images with negative and positive parities. The negative-parity image is a…
Planetary transits are commonly observed at visible wavelengths. Here we investigate the shape of a planetary transit observed at radio wavelengths. Solar maps of the Sun at 17 GHz are used as a proxy for the stellar eclipse by several…
We introduce a new method of searching for and characterizing extra-solar planets. We show that by monitoring the center-of-light motion of microlensing alerts using the next generation of high precision astrometric instruments the…
In 1919, Eddington and Dyson led two famous expeditions to measure the bending of light during a total solar eclipse. The results of this effort led to the first experimental confirmation of Einstein's General Relativity and contributed to…
Solar oblateness has been the subject of several studies dating back to the nineteenth century. Despite diffculties, both theoretical and observational, tangible results have been achieved. However, variability of the solar oblateness with…
The fields of occultation and microlensing are linked historically. Early this century, occultation of the Sun by the Moon allowed the apparent positions of background stars projected near the limb of the Sun to be measured and compared…
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…
When an exoplanet passes behind its host star, we can measure the time of the occultation, its depth, and its color. In this chapter we describe how these observables can be used to deduce physical characteristics of the planet such as its…
The Earth's albedo is a fundamental climate parameter for understanding the radiation budget of the atmosphere. It has been traditionally measured from space platforms, but also from the ground for sixteen years from Big Bear Solar…
Measuring the solar diameter at all position angles gives the complete figure of the Sun. Their asphericities have implications in classical physics and general relativity, and the behavior of the optical systems used in the direct…
This thesis is based on observations performed at the Vacuum Tower Telescope (Tenerife). We have used an infrared spectropolarimeter (TIP) and a Fabry-Perot spectrometer (G-FPI) from years 2004 to 2006. We have applied several imaging…
The figure of the Sun reflects its inner structure and dynamics, influencing also the perihelion precession of close orbiting bodies, like Mercury. To study the solar figure from ground, the deformation on the solar image induced by the…
We define a physically-motivated measure for galactic bar length, called the dynamical length. The dynamical length of the bar corresponds to the radial extent of the orbits that are the backbone supporting the bar feature. We propose a…
Eclipse shadow bands are transient intensity patterns that can appear on the ground near solar eclipse totality. This study presents a reusable image-processing framework for analyzing shadow-band video recordings collected with…
The passive retroreflector arrays placed on the moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15 astronauts continue to produce valuable Earth-Moon range measurements that enable high-precision tests of gravitational physics, as well as studies of geo- and…
Observations of the Sun in the visible spectral range belong to standard measurements obtained by instruments both on the ground and in the space. Nowadays, both nearly continuous full-disc observations with medium resolution and dedicated…