Related papers: CCD photometry of bright stars using objective wir…

Kilometric-scale optical imagers seem feasible to realize by intensity interferometry, using telescopes primarily erected for measuring Cherenkov light induced by gamma rays. Planned arrays envision 50--100 telescopes, distributed over some…

We report BV(RI)c CCD photometric data for a group of seven Cepheid variables in the young, rich cluster NGC 1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The photometry was obtained as part of a program to determine accurate distances to these…

Due to their high intrinsic brightness, type II supernovae (SN) can be used as lighthouses to constrain distances in the Universe using variants of the Baade-Wesselink method. Based on a large set of CMFGEN models (Hillier & Miller 1998)…

Optical interferometry is the only technique giving access to milli-arcsecond (mas) resolution at infrared wavelengths. For Cepheids, this is a powerful and unique tool to detect the orbiting companions and the circumstellar envelopes…

We investigate blending, binarity and photometric biases in crowded-field CCD imaging. For this, we consider random blend losses, which correspond to the total number of stars left undetected in unresolved blends. We present a simple…

The XO project aims at detecting transiting exoplanets around bright stars from the ground using small telescopes. The original configuration of XO (McCullough et al. 2005) has been changed and extended as described here. The instrumental…

We present several corrections for point source photometry to be applied to data from the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on the Spitzer Space Telescope. These corrections are necessary because of characteristics of the IRAC arrays and optics…

We demonstrate a path to hitherto unachievable differential photometric precisions from the ground, both in the optical and near-infrared (NIR), using custom-fabricated beam-shaping diffusers produced using specialized nanofabrication…

The CHIRON optical high-resolution echelle spectrometer was commissioned at the 1.5m telescope at CTIO in 2011. The instrument was designed for high throughput and stability, with the goal of monitoring radial velocities of bright stars…

We have developed a wide-field mosaic CCD camera, MOA-cam3, mounted at the prime focus of the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) 1.8-m telescope. The camera consists of ten E2V CCD4482 chips, each having 2kx4k pixels, and…

We have designed, constructed, and tested an InGaAs near-infrared camera to explore whether low-cost detectors can make small (<1 m) telescopes capable of precise (<1 mmag) infrared photometry of relatively bright targets. The camera is…

In 2005, interferometric observations with VLTI/VINCI and CHARA/FLUOR revealed the existence of a circumstellar envelope (CSE) around some Cepheids. This surrounding material is particularly interesting for two reasons: it could have an…

We present the final results from a novel Cherenkov imaging detector called the Focusing DIRC (FDIRC). This detector was designed as a full-scale prototype of the particle identification system for the SuperB experiment [1], and comprises…

Photometric redshifts are a key tool to extract as much information as possible from planned cosmic shear experiments. In this work we aim to test the performances that can be achieved with observations in the near-infrared from space and…

We undertook a long term project, DIRECT, to obtain the direct distances to two important galaxies in the cosmological distance ladder -- M31 and M33 -- using detached eclipsing binaries (DEBs) and Cepheids. While rare and difficult to…

A new method is developed for estimating photometric redshifts, using realistic template SEDs, extending over four decades in wavelength (i.e from 0.05 $\mu m$ to 1 mm). The SEDs are constructed for four different spectral types of galaxies…

We show the benefits of using Electron-Multiplying CCDs and the shift-and-add technique as a tool to minimise the effects of the atmospheric turbulence such as blending between stars in crowded fields and to avoid saturated stars in the…

The VERITAS array is a set of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) sensitive to gamma rays at energies between 85 GeV and 30 TeV. Each telescope is based on a tessellated mirror, 12 metres in diameter, which reflects light…

We have carried out photometric follow-up observations of bright transiting extrasolar planets using the CbNUOJ 0.6m telescope. We have tested the possibility of obtaining high photometric precision by applying the telescope defocus…

Although the use of RGB photometry has exploded in the last decades due to the advent of high-quality and inexpensive digital cameras equipped with Bayer-like color filter systems, there is surprisingly no catalogue of bright stars that can…