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Of all planet-finding techniques, microlensing is potentially the most sensitive to Earth-mass planets. However, microlensing lightcurves generically yield only the planet-star mass ratio: the mass itself is uncertain to a factor of a few.…
Motivated by the ongoing Spitzer observational campaign, and the forecoming K2 one, we revisit, working in an heliocentric reference frame, the geometrical foundation for the analysis of the microlensing parallax, as measured with the…
In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of…
Fast variability of optical objects is an interesting though poorly explored subject in modern astronomy. Real-time data processing and identification of transient celestial events in the images is very important for such study as it allows…
We consider sampling and detection strategies for solar illuminated space debris. We argue that the lowest detectable debris cross section may be reduced by 10-100x by analysis of stacks of image frames collected at high rates rather than…
The observation of objects located in inaccessible regions is a recurring challenge in a wide variety of important applications. Recent work has shown that indirect diffuse light reflections can be used to reconstruct objects and…
Given the extreme accuracy reached by future global space astrometry, one needs a global relativistic modeling of observations. A relativistic definition of astrometric observables is then essential to find uniquely coordinates, parallax…
The Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response (RAPTOR) experiment is a spatially distributed system of autonomous robotic telescopes that is designed to monitor the sky for optical transients. The core of the system is composed of two telescope…
In this paper we build upon recent work in the radio astronomy community to experimentally demonstrate the viability of passive radar for Space Situational Awareness. Furthermore, we show that the six state parameters of objects in orbit…
Quantum optics potentially offers an information channel from the Universe beyond the established ones of imaging and spectroscopy. All existing cameras and all spectrometers measure aspects of the first-order spatial and/or temporal…
Recent investigations (e.g. Han et al. 2001) have shown that fitting the Hipparcos observations with an orbital model when the astrometric wobble caused by the companion is below the noise level can have rather unexpected consequences. With…
To determine the 3D orientation and 3D location of objects in the surroundings of a camera mounted on a robot or mobile device, we developed two powerful algorithms in object detection and temporal tracking that are combined seamlessly for…
Proper interpretation and understanding of astronomical data requires good knowledge of the data acquisition process. The increase in remote observing, queue observing, and the availability of large archived data products risk insulating…
Doppler orbitography uses the Doppler shift in a transmitted signal to determine the orbital parameters of satellites including range and range-rate (or radial velocity). We describe two techniques for atmospheric-limited optical Doppler…
Aims: We compare the apparent difference in timing of transiting planets (or eclipsing binaries) that are observed from widely separated locations (parallactic delay). Methods: A simple geometrical argument allow us to show that the…
Orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are now sufficiently dense that the use of LEO space is threatened by runaway collisional cascading. A problem predicted more than thirty years ago, the threat from debris larger than about 1 cm…
Optical telescopes are powerful eyes for terrestrial and astronomical detection. Here we propose a new detection method with high efficiency, strong robustness and super precision, as an enhanced technique for optical telescopes in angular…
It is difficult to discover pulsars via their gamma-ray emission because current instruments typically detect fewer than one photon per million rotations. This creates a significant computing challenge for isolated pulsars, where the…
The Einstein rings and proper motions of nearby stars tend to be large. Thus, every year some foreground stars within a few hundred parsecs of Earth induce gravitational lensing events in background stars. In some of these cases, the events…
Knowledge of the orbits of visual binary stars has always been one of the fundamentals of astronomy. Based historically on the visual measures, nowadays the orbits rely more (or exclusively) on the accurate speckle data. This prompts…