Related papers: V.M. Slipher and the Development of the Nebular Sp…
The detection, in 1998, of the first Accreting Millisecond Pulsar, started an exciting season of continuing discoveries in the fashinating field of compact binary systems harbouring a neutron star. Indeed, in these last three lustres,…
Proposed by Maxwell in 1879 detector of aether seems, at a superficial glance, a simple device. For example, Michelson in 1881 thought that he built an instrument that (when you turn it in the horizontal plane) will measure in vacuum…
Rotational variables are stars that vary in brightness due to star spots modulated by rotation. They are probes of stellar magnetism, binarity, and evolution. Phillips et al. (2023) explored distinct populations of ~50,000 high-amplitude…
In 1936 Einstein predicted the phenomenon presently known as gravitational lensing (GL). A prime feature of GL is the magnification, because of the gravitational field, of the star visible surface as seen from a distant observer. We show…
Historically the velocity scatter seen on local Hubble plots has been attributed to the peculiar velocities of individual galaxies. Although most galaxies also have uncertainties in their distances, when galaxies with accurate distances are…
We test the usual hypothesis that the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) dipole, its largest anisotropy, is due to our peculiar velocity with respect to the Hubble flow by measuring independently the Doppler and aberration effects on the CMB…
One of the most exciting results of the Spitzer era has been the ability to construct longitudinal brightness maps from the infrared phase variations of hot Jupiters. We presented the first such map in Knutson et al. (2007), described the…
Although cosmologists have been trying to determine the value of the Hubble constant for nearly 65 years, they have only succeeded in limiting the range of possibilities: most of the current observational determinations place the Hubble…
Spatially resolved profiles of the Halpha and [NII] lines have been obtained at unprecendented signal--to--noise ratios over the outflowing lobes of the high--excitation, poly--polar planetary nebula NGC~6302. A deep image in the light of…
The detection of GW170817 and the identification of its host galaxy have allowed for the first standard-siren measurement of the Hubble constant, with an uncertainty of $\sim 14\%$. As more detections of binary neutron stars with redshift…
The results of long-term spectral observations were used to search for changes in planetary nebulae and emission-line stars. Significant increase of excitation degree is found in two objects: M1-6 and M1-11.
Under certain conditions, stellar radial velocities can be determined from astrometry, without any use of spectroscopy. This enables us to identify phenomena, other than the Doppler effect, that are displacing spectral lines. The change of…
Recent re-determination of stellar atmospheric parameters for a sample of stars observed during the {\it Kepler} mission allowed to enlarge the number of {\it Kepler} B-type stars. We present the detailed frequency analysis for all these…
The Doppler beaming effect, induced by the reflex motion of stars, introduces flux modulations and serves as an efficient method to photometrically determine mass functions for a large number of close binary systems, particularly those…
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…
Individual distances to planetary nebulae are of the utmost relevance for our understanding of post-asymptotic giant-branch evolution because they allow a precise determination of stellar and nebular properties. Also, objects with…
In 1676 Olaus R{\o}mer presented the first observational evidence for a finite light velocity $\cem$. He formed his estimate by attributing the periodically varying discrepancy between the observed and expected occultation times of the…
The hydrogen Lyman lines provide important diagnostic information about the dynamics of the chromosphere, but there have been few systematic studies of their variability during flares. We investigate Doppler shifts in these lines in several…
Rapidly-rotating neutron stars are the only candidates for persistent high-frequency gravitational wave emission, for which a targeted search can be performed based on the spin period measured from electromagnetic (e.g. radio and X-ray)…
The Hubble constant $H_0$, the current expansion rate of the universe, is one of the most important parameters in cosmology. The cosmic expansion regulates the mutually approaching motion of a pair of celestial objects due to their gravity.…