Related papers: Testing Potential New Sites for Optical Telescopes…
Maunakea is one of the world's primary sites for astronomical observing, with multiple telescopes operating over sub-millimeter to optical wavelengths. With its summit higher than 4200 meters above sea level, Maunakea is an ideal location…
The Minerva-Australis telescope array is a facility dedicated to the follow-up, confirmation, characterisation, and mass measurement of bright transiting planets discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) -- a category…
Quantitative forecasting of average rainfall into the next season remains highly challenging, but in some favourable isolated cases may be possible with a series of relatively simple steps. We chose to explore predictions of austral…
We present the first results of the site testing performed at Mt.~Shatdzhatmaz at Northern Caucasus, where the new Sternberg astronomical institute 2.5-m telescope will be installed. An automatic site monitor instrumentation and…
In the near future, all-sky radio surveys are set to produce catalogues of tens of millions of sources with limited multi-wavelength photometry. Spectroscopic redshifts will only be possible for a small fraction of these new-found sources.…
Technical description of the new project called All Sky Automated Survey and results of the tests of our prototype instrument are presented. The ultimate goal of this project is photometric monitoring of the large area of the sky with fully…
The observation of celestial objects is a fundamental activity in astronomy. Ground-based and space telescopes are used to gather electromagnetic radiation from space, allowing astronomers to study a wide range of celestial objects and…
Ground-based telescopes have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Extreme…
We recommend a conceptual design study for a spectroscopic facility in the southern hemisphere comprising a large diameter telescope, fiber system, and spectrographs collectively optimized for massively-multiplexed spectroscopy. As a…
In Australia, hailstorms present considerable public safety and economic risks, where they are considered the most damaging natural hazard in terms of annual insured losses. Despite these impacts, the current climatological distribution of…
We discuss scientific, technical and programmatic issues related to the use of an NRO 2.4m telescope for the WFIRST initiative of the 2010 Decadal Survey. We show that this implementation of WFIRST, which we call "NEW WFIRST," would achieve…
The CANGAROO-III project,which consists of an array of four 10 m imaging Cherenkov telescopes,has just started being constructed in Woomera, South Australia,in a collaboration between Australia and Japan. The first stereoscopic observation…
NASA's Kepler mission will fly a photometer based on a wide-field Schmidt camera with a 0.95 m aperture, staring at a single field continuously for at least 4 years. Although the mission's principal aim is to locate transiting extrasolar…
The cold, dry and stable air above the summits of the Antarctic plateau provides the best ground-based observing conditions from optical to sub-mm wavelengths to be found on the Earth. PILOT is a proposed 2 m telescope, to be built at Dome…
We present a description of a new instrument development, HARPS3, planned to be installed on an upgraded and roboticized Isaac Newton Telescope by end-2018. HARPS3 will be a high resolution (R = 115,000) echelle spectrograph with a…
The two most powerful optical/IR telescopes in history -- NASA's Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes -- will be in space at the same time. We have a unique opportunity to leverage the 1.5 million kilometer separation between the two…
Solar flares are events of intense scientific interest. Although certain solar conditions are known to be associated with flare activity, the exact location and timing of an individual flare on the Sun cannot as yet be predicted with…
The impact of large-scale constellations of satellites, is a concern for ground-based astronomers. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of satellites in Low-Earth Orbit and this trend is set to continue. The…
Astrophysics facilities have been of tremendous importance for planetary science. The flagship space observatory Hubble Space Telescope has produced ground-breaking Solar System science, but when launched it did not even have the capability…
The Telescope to Observe Planetary Systems (TOPS) is a proposed space mission to image in the visible (0.4-0.9 micron) planetary systems of nearby stars simultaneously in 16 spectral bands (resolution R~20). For the ~10 most favorable…