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The next decade of survey astronomy has the potential to transform our knowledge of variable stars. Stellar variability underpins our knowledge of the cosmological distance ladder, and provides direct tests of stellar formation and…
The Chinese Plate-Digitizing Project has digitized a total number of about 30,000 astronomical plates from 11 telescopes of five observatories (SHAO, NAOC, PMO, YNAO, and QDO) in China, spanning nearly 100 years of observations. In this…
China has systematically collected nighttime astronomical plates since 1900, creating a large historical dataset that has been digitized with optical scanners. For astrometric registration of these digitized plates, sources were first…
Fundamental changes are taking place in the way we do astronomy. In twenty years time, it is likely that most astronomers will never go near a cutting-edge telescope, which will be much more efficiently operated in service mode. They will…
Astrophysical studies require a knowledge of very accurate positions, motions and distances of stars. A brief overview is given of the significance and development of astrometry by ESA's two astrometric satellites, Hipparcos and Gaia,…
Astronomy has a rich tradition of using color photography and imaging, for visualization in research as well as for sharing scientific discoveries in formal and informal education settings (i.e., for "public outreach.") In the modern era,…
For more that seventy years, the measurements of fluxes of galaxies at different wavelengths and derived colours have been used to estimate their corresponding cosmological distances. From the fields of galaxy and AGN evolution to precision…
With the advent of optical interferometers that will be coming online in the next decade, radial velocity searches for extra-solar planets will be complemented by high angular resolution astrometric measurements. In this paper, we explore…
Since its emergence two decades ago, astrophotonics has found broad application in scientific instruments at many institutions worldwide. The case for astrophotonics becomes more compelling as telescopes push for AO-assisted,…
In the last decade a new generation of telescopes and sensors has allowed the production of a very large amount of data and astronomy has become, a data-rich science; this transition is often labeled as: "data revolution" and "data…
Astronomers have come to recognize the benefits of photonics, often in combination with optical systems, in solving longstanding experimental problems in Earth-based astronomy. Here, we explore some of the recent advances made possible by…
As many research papers in astronomy have been written since the beginning of the 21st century as had been written previously. This exponential growth has been accompanied by substantial changes in the structure of astrophysics research,…
Some 400 years after Galileo, modern telescopes have enabled humanity to "see" what the natural eye cannot. Astronomical images today contain information about incredibly large objects located across vast distances and reveal information…
Image Processing in Astronomy is a major field of research and involves a lot of techniques pertaining to improve analyzing the properties of the celestial objects or obtaining preliminary inference from the image data. In this paper, we…
Astronomy is one of the most data-intensive of the sciences. Data technology is accelerating the quality and effectiveness of its research, and the rate of astronomical discovery is higher than ever. As a result, many view astronomy as…
Despite almost all being acquired as photons, astronomical data from different instruments and at different stages in its life may exist in different formats to serve different purposes. Beyond the data itself, descriptive information is…
Europe and a number of countries in the world are investing significant amounts of public money to operate and maintain large, ground-based astronomical facilities. Even larger projects are under development to observe the faintest and most…
Data volumes from multiple sky surveys have grown from gigabytes into terabytes during the past decade, and will grow from terabytes into tens (or hundreds) of petabytes in the next decade. This exponential growth of new data both enables…
Ground-based optical astronomy necessarily involves sensing the light of astronomical objects along with the contributions of many natural sources ranging from the Earth's atmosphere to cosmological light. In addition, astronomers have long…
Astrometry as a technique has so far proved of limited utility when employed as either a follow-up tool or to independently search for planetary mass companions orbiting nearby stars. However, this is bound to change during the next decade.…