Related papers: European Extremely Large Telescope Site Characteri…
In the context of the MOSE project, in this contribution we present a detailed analysis of the Meso-NH mesoscale model performances and their dependency on the model and orography horizontal resolutions in proximity of the ground. The…
The workhorse instruments of the 8-10m class observatories have become their multi-object spectrographs (MOS), providing comprehensive follow-up to both ground-based and space-borne imaging. With the advent of deeper imaging surveys from,…
Knowledge of the Earth's atmospheric optical turbulence is critical for astronomical instrumentation. Not only does it enable performance verification and optimisation of existing systems but it is required for the design of future…
Climate change is affecting and will increasingly affect astronomical observations. In this paper, we investigated the role some key weather parameters play in the quality of astronomical observations, and analysed their long-term trends…
Optical turbulence affects significantly the quality of ground-based astronomical observations. An accurate and reliable forecast of optical turbulence can help to optimise the scheduling of the science observations and to improve both the…
The next generation ground-based extremely large telescopes (ELTs) present incredible opportunities to discover and characterize diverse planetary systems, even potentially habitable worlds. Adaptive-optics assisted thermal-IR (3-14 micron)…
Over the past 18 months we have revisited the science requirements for a multi-object spectrograph (MOS) for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). These efforts span the full range of E-ELT science and include input from a broad…
Atmospheric optical turbulence seriously limits the performance of high angular resolution instruments. An 8-night campaign of measurements was carried out at the LAMOST site in 2011, to characterize the optical turbulence. Two instruments…
The VST (VLT Survey Telescope) is a 2.6 m class Alt-Az telescope to be installed on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama desert, Northern Chile, in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) site. The VST is a wide-field imaging facility planned to…
In 2006 ESO Council authorized a Phase B study of a European AO-telescope with a 42 m segmented primary with a 5-mirror design, the E-ELT. Several reports and working groups have already presented science cases for an E-ELT, specifically…
Extremely large telescopes (ELTs) present an unparalleled opportunity to study the magnetism, atmospheric dynamics, and chemistry of very low mass stars (VLMs), brown dwarfs, and exoplanets. Instruments such as the Giant Magellan Telescope…
We research the requirements of High Contrast Imaging when combined with the cross correlation (CC) of high resolution spectra with known spectroscopic templates for detecting and characterising exoplanets in reflected light. We simulate…
In this paper we study the abilities of an atmospherical mesoscale model in forecasting the classical atmospherical parameters relevant for astronomical applications at the surface layer (wind speed, wind direction, temperature, relative…
We present very encouraging preliminary results obtained in the context of the MOSE project, an on-going study aiming at investigating the feasibility of the forecast of the optical turbulence and meteorological parameters (in the free…
EAGLE is a Phase A study of a multi-IFU, near-IR spectrometer for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The design employs wide-field adaptive optics to deliver excellent image quality across a large (38.5 arcmin sq.) field. When…
The study of extrasolar planets has rapidly expanded to encompass the search for new planets, measurements of sizes and masses, models of planetary interiors, planetary demographics and occurrence frequencies, the characterization of…
We present the results of simulations on the detectability of $O_2$ in the atmosphere of Earth twins around nearby low mass stars using high resolution transmission spectroscopy. We explore such detectability with each of the three upcoming…
The Einstein Telescope (ET) is a proposed next-generation, underground gravitational-wave (GW) detector to be based in Europe. It will provide about an order of magnitude sensitivity increase with respect to currently operating detectors,…
Aims: We studied the precipitable water vapour (PWV) content near Cerro Armazones and discuss the potential use of our technique of modelling the telluric absorbtion lines for the investigation of other molecular layers. The site is…
The advent of Extremely Large Telescopes ELTs, ground-based optical or infrared observatories with primary mirrors exceeding 20 m heralds a transformative epoch in observational astronomy. This article examines the dawn of this new era and…