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We present the analysis of high angular resolution observations of the triple Asteroid (87) Sylvia collected with three 8-10 m class telescopes (Keck, VLT, Gemini North) and the Hubble Space Telescope. The moons' mutual orbits were derived…
Stellar occultations are an ideal way to characterize the physical and orbital properties of trans-Neptunian binary systems. In this research note, we detail the prediction and observation of a stellar occultation observed with NASA's IRTF…
Wide-field surveys have markedly enhanced the discovery and study of solar system objects (SSOs). The 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST) represents the foremost facility dedicated to optical time-domain surveys in the northern…
Missions to small celestial bodies rely heavily on optical feature tracking for characterization of and relative navigation around the target body. While deep learning has led to great advancements in feature detection and description,…
We introduce a novel algorithm, $\textit{COD}$ -- Compact Opacity Distribution, for shape reconstruction of a celestial body that has been observed to occult a star, using the photometric time-series observations of the occultation.…
Some optical measurements require relative timing of intensity variations with accuracy much finer than the camera frame period. One motivating example is dynamic aurora, where different prompt emissions are expected to originate from…
Meteors carry important and indispensable information about the interplanetary environment, which can be used to understand the origin and evolution of our solar system. We have developed a Multi-station Meteor Monitoring ($\rm M^3$) system…
We have used an existing, robotic, multi-lens, all-sky camera system, coupled to a dedicated data reduction pipeline, to automatically determine orbital parameters of satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Each of the fixed cameras has a…
In July 5th 2014 an occultation of Mars by the Moon was visible in South America. Citizen scientists and professional astronomers in Colombia, Venezuela and Chile performed a set of simple observations of the phenomenon aimed to measure the…
Despite the large amount of high quality data generated in recent space encounters with asteroids, the majority of our knowledge about these objects comes from ground based observations. Asteroids travelling in orbits that are potentially…
(Abridged) In the first part of this thesis, a general methodology for applying image deconvolution to wide-field CCD imagery. Results show that wavelet-based deconvolution can increase limiting magnitude up to 0.6 mag and improve limiting…
The masses and radii of extrasolar planets are key observables for understanding their interior, formation and evolution. While transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy are used to measure the radii and masses respectively of planets…
Object tracking has been broadly applied in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tasks in recent years. However, existing algorithms still face difficulties such as partial occlusion, clutter background, and other challenging visual factors.…
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) aims to detect serendipitous occultations of stars by small (about 1 km diameter) objects in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Such events are very rare (<0.001 events per star per year) and short…
An imaging technique with sensitivity to short duration optical transients is described. The technique is based on the use of wide-field cameras operating in a drift scanning mode, whereby persistent objects produce trails on the sensor and…
Measuring the albedo of an extrasolar planet provides insights into its atmospheric composition and its global thermal properties, including heat dissipation and weather patterns. Such a measurement requires very precise photometry of a…
We describe digital tracking, a method for asteroid searches that greatly increases the sensitivity of a telescope to faint unknown asteroids. It has been previously used to detect faint Kuiper Belt objects using the Hubble Space Telescope…
In the scenario in which QCD axion dark matter is produced after inflation, the Universe is populated by large inhomogeneities on very small scales. Eventually, these fluctuations will collapse gravitationally to form dense axion…
Balloon-borne astronomy offers an attractive option for experiments that require precise pointing and attitude stabilization, due to a large reduction in the atmospheric interference observed by ground-based systems as well as the low-cost…
Small aperture telescopes provide the opportunity to conduct high frequency, targeted observations of near-Earth Asteroids that are not feasible with larger facilities due to highly competitive time allocation requirements. Observations of…