Related papers: SOLIS: reconciling disk-integrated and disk-resolv…
The presence of infrared excesses around stars directly correlates to spatially-resolved imaging detections of circumstellar disks at both mm and optical/near-infrared wavelengths. High contrast imagers have resolved dozens of circumstellar…
Stellar activity is the major roadblock on the path to finding true Earth-analogue planets with the Doppler technique. Thus, identifying new indicators that better trace magnetic activity (i.e. faculae and spots) is crucial to aid in…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will observe around 10^6 spectra from targets distributed over an area of about 10,000 square degrees, using a multi-object fiber spectrograph which can simultaneously observe 640 objects in a circular…
Modern studies of the Sun involve coordinated observations collected from a collage of instruments on the ground and in orbit. Each instrument has its own constraints, such as field of view, duty cycle, and scheduling and commanding…
The occlusion of the sun by clouds is one of the primary sources of uncertainties in solar power generation, and is a factor that affects the wide-spread use of solar power as a primary energy source. Real-time forecasting of cloud movement…
Since the first observations of solar oscillations in 1962, helioseismology has probably been one of the most successful fields of astrophysics. Besides the improvement of observational data, solar seismologists developed sophisticated…
Over the past decade the study of solar-like oscillations in red-giant stars has developed significantly. Not only the number of red-giant stars for which solar-like oscillations have been observed has increased, but the quality of these…
Radial velocity perturbations induced by stellar surface inhomogeneities including spots, plages and granules currently limit the detection of Earth-twins using Doppler spectroscopy. Such stellar noise is poorly understood for stars other…
Solar irradiance variability has been monitored almost exclusively from the Earth's perspective. {We present a method to combine the unprecedented observations of the photospheric magnetic field and continuum intensity from outside the…
The role of clouds is manifold in understanding the various events in the atmosphere, and also in studying the radiative balance of the earth. The conventional manner of such cloud analysis is performed mainly via satellite images. However,…
Dwarf-planet (1) Ceres is one of the two targets, along with (4) Vesta, that will be studied by the NASA Dawn spacecraft via imaging, visible and near-infrared spectroscopy, and gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy. While Ceres' visible and…
The internal dust extinction in spiral galaxies can affect our understanding of their structure and morphology, as well as our perception of the distant universe in the background. The intrinsic properties of the stellar and dust components…
The POLAR Investigation of the Sun (POLARIS) mission uses a combination of a gravity assist and solar sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a 0.48 AU circular orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 75 degrees with respect to solar…
Stellar radial velocities play a fundamental role in the discovery of extrasolar planets and the measurement of their physical parameters as well as in the study of stellar physical properties. We investigate the impact of the solar…
The Vector Spectromagnetograph (VSM) instrument on the Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) telescope is designed to obtain high-quality magnetic field observations in both the photosphere and chromosphere by…
I first review the status of Digital Sky Surveys. The focus will be on extragalactic surveys with an area of more than 100 sq.deg. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is the archetype of such imaging surveys and it is its great success that has…
The magnetic field plays a major role in governing the dynamics of the sun. Many interesting features like sunspots, flares, prominences, and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) occur on its surface due to the dynamics associated with the…
Solar irradiance measurements are limited to the last few decades, requiring reconstructions to assess solar variability on longer timescales and its impact on Earth's climate. We present the first physics-based reconstruction of total…
The Search for Planets Orbiting Two Stars (SPOTS) survey aims to study the formation and distribution of planets in binary systems by detecting and characterizing circumbinary planets and their formation environments through direct imaging.…
Identification of Fraunhofer lines with the known atomic and molecular absorbers and predictions leading to such an effort has been a challenging area of study crowned with occasional success. Such studies have also lead, amongst other…