Related papers: Instruments on large optical telescopes -- A case …
The Big Fringe Telescope (BFT) is a facility concept under development for a next-generation, kilometer-scale optical interferometer. Observations over the past two decades from routinely operational facilities such as CHARA and VLTI have…
Optics is an important subfield of physics required for instrument design and used in a variety of other disciplines, including materials science, physics, and life sciences such as developmental biology and cell biology. It is important to…
Extremely large telescopes (ELTs) are considered worldwide to be one of the highest priorities in ground-based astronomy. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is developing an ELT that will have a 39 m main mirror and will be the largest…
The next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT), with diameters up to 39 meters, will start opera- tion in the next decade and promises new challenges in the development of instruments. The growing field of astrophotonics (the use…
During the recent years of LHC operation, we analysed the situation of beam instrumentation and the need to optimize it for beam-beam studies. The most important beam instrumentation devices will be highlighted and modifications or…
Astrophotonics is the application of versatile photonic technologies to channel, manipulate, and disperse guided light from one or more telescopes to achieve scientific objectives in astronomy in an efficient and cost-effective way. The…
The preparation of a telescope observation time proposal is a recurring activity in observational astronomy. It is a necessary investment of time and effort to obtain data to advance a research topic. Therefore, the success of an…
The optimal performance of adaptive optics systems can only be maintained if the wavefront reference is bright and compact. Experience has shown that both of these important criteria are remarkably difficult to achieve with laser guide…
Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host…
Despite centuries of close association, statistics and astronomy are surprisingly distant today. Most observational astronomical research relies on an inadequate toolbox of methodological tools. Yet the needs are substantial: astronomy…
Recent advances in astronomical observations have ushered in an era of remarkable discoveries. We now probe the Universe through multi-messenger signals, image the sky with unprecedented depth and resolution, and investigate individual…
The ESO telescope bibliography (telbib) dates back to 1996. During the 20+ years of its existence, it has undergone many changes. Most importantly, the telbib system has been enhanced to cater to new use cases and demands from its…
In 2006 I published an article in GeminiFocus that examined funding for astronomical adaptive optics related technology and instrumentation in the United States from 1995 through mid-2006. That article concluded that based on projections…
The previous generation of astronomical instruments tended to consist of single receivers in the focal point of one or more physical reflectors. Because of this, most astronomical data sets were small enough that the raw data could easily…
The power of robotic telescopes to transform science education has been voiced by multiple sources, since the 1980s. Since then, much technical progress has been made in robotic telescope provision to end users via a variety of different…
The search for Earth-like exoplanets requires high-contrast and high-angular resolution instruments, which designs can be very complex: they need an adaptive optics system to compensate for the effect of the atmospheric turbulence on image…
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…
One of the most useful techniques in astronomical instrumentation is image slicing. It enables a spectrograph to have a more compact angular slit, whilst retaining throughput and increasing resolving power. Astrophotonic components like the…
An array of large observational programs using ground-based and space-borne telescopes is planned in the next decade. The forthcoming wide-field sky surveys are expected to deliver a sheer volume of data exceeding an exabyte. Processing the…
Large area surveys will dominate the forthcoming decades of astronomy and their success requires characterizing thousands of discoveries through additional observations at higher spatial or spectral resolution, and at complementary cadences…