Related papers: WFIRST-2.4: What Every Astronomer Should Know
As the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has become fully operational, early-release data are now available to begin building the tools and calibrations for precision point-source photometry and astrometry in crowded cluster environments.…
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) will be the first high-performance stellar coronagraph using active wavefront control for deep starlight suppression in space, providing unprecedented levels of…
The first unbiased surveys for high-redshift galaxies in the submillimeter (submm) and far-infrared (FIR) wavebands have been made over the last two years. When combined with the intensity of extragalactic background radiation in the same…
[NIRSS is one of three concepts that contributed to the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission advocated by the Decadal Survey.] Operating beyond the reaches of the Earth's atmosphere, free of its limiting absorption and…
Due to its simultaneous deep imaging and integral field spectroscopic capability, an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrograph (IFTS) is ideally suited to the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) mission, and offers opportunities for…
I argue that there is a crisis in optical Astronomy due to a paucity of telescopes and thus the need for a paradigm shift in telescope technology. Large increases in collecting areas and observing time/astronomer are only possible if we…
The coronagraph instrument on the WFIRST-AFTA mission study has two coronagraphic architectures, shaped pupil and hybrid Lyot, which may be interchanged for use in different observing scenarios. Each architecture relies on newly-developed…
The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) of the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts (SuMIRe) project has been endorsed by Japanese community as one of the main future instruments of the Subaru 8.2-meter telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. This…
This paper develops a few science cases, using the PRIMA far-IR probe, aimed at achieving several breakthroughs in our understanding of the dust properties and their evolution. We argue that the specific observational capabilities of PRIMA,…
The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) for JWST is supplied with a suite of imaging bandpass filters optimized for full spectral coverage in eight intermediate-width bands from 5 to 26 microns and a narrower one at 11.3 microns. This contrasts…
AIMS: We aim to evaluate the near-infrared colors of brown dwarfs as observed with four major infrared imaging space observatories: the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Euclid mission, and the WFIRST…
This paper describes the design and implementation of a facility simulator for the 4 metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) project, a new survey instrument proposed for the ESO VISTA telescope. The 4MOST Facility Simulator…
Due to its simultaneous deep imaging and integral field spectroscopic capability, an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrograph (IFTS) is ideally suited to the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) mission, and offers opportunities for…
The WFIRST microlensing mission will measure precise light curves and relative parallaxes for millions of stars, giving it the potential to characterize short-period transiting planets all along the line of sight and into the galactic…
For future space infrared astronomical coronagraphy, we perform experimental studies on the application of aluminum mirrors to a coronagraph. Cooled reflective optics is required for broad-band mid-infrared observations in space, while…
A new 10 meter diameter telescope is being constructed for deployment at the NSF South Pole research station. The telescope is designed for conducting large-area millimeter and sub-millimeter wave surveys of faint, low contrast emission, as…
We describe a system being developed for measuring the shapes of the mirrors of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), now under construction for the CCAT Observatory. "Holographic" antenna-measuring techniques are an efficient and…
(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique…
The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is by far the largest telescope of any kind ever built. FAST produced its first light in September 2016 and it is now under commissioning, with normal operation to commence in…
The PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) mission concept is a proposed mission to NASA's Astrophysics Probe Explorer (APEX) call. The concept features a cryogenically cooled 1.8 m diameter telescope, and is designed to carry…