Related papers: The Next Generation Transit Survey - Prototyping P…

Near-infrared photometry of transiting extrasolar planets can be of great scientific value. It is however not straightforward to reach the necessary millimagnitude precision. Here we report on our attempts to observe transits and secondary…

Currently, over forty transiting planets have been discovered by ground-based photometric surveys, and space-based missions like Kepler and CoRoT are expected to detect hundreds more. Follow-up photometric observations from the ground will…

The recent detection of a very high energy (VHE) emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) above 100 GeV performed by the MAGIC and H.E.S.S. collaborations, has represented a significant, long-awaited result for the VHE astrophysics community.…

By the precise timing of the low amplitude (0.005 - 0.02 magnitude) transits of exoplanets around their parent star it should be possible to infer the presence of other planetary bodies in the system down to Earth-like masses. We describe…

Next generation neutrino telescopes are highly anticipated to boost the development of neutrino astronomy. A multi-cubic-kilometer neutrino telescope, TRopIcal DEep-sea Neutrino Telescope (TRIDENT), was proposed to be built in the South…

This thesis focuses on the detection of extrasolar planets via the transit method, and more specifically addresses issues relevant to the preparation of upcoming space missions such as CoRoT, Kepler, Eddington, aiming to detect terrestrial…

(abridged) A complete census of planetary systems around a volume-limited sample of solar-type stars (FGK dwarfs) in the Solar neighborhood with uniform sensitivity down to Earth-mass planets within their Habitable Zones out to several AUs…

The ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) is an ongoing project to carry out public imaging surveys to support programs on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). The first phase of the project started in July 1997 and consisted of a moderately deep,…

We describe the La Silla-QUEST (LSQ) Variability Survey. LSQ is a dedicated wide-field synoptic survey in the Southern Hemisphere, focussing on the discovery and study of transients ranging from low redshift (z < 0.1) SN Ia, Tidal…

Assess the joint capabilities of emerging telescopes for near-Earth objects (NEOs) survey and characterization, and what they will add to the current capabilities or replace. NASA telescopes in prime mission, in development, or under study,…

We present a technique for verifying or refuting exoplanet candidates from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission by searching for nearby eclipsing binary stars using higher-resolution archival images from ground-based…

CARMENES (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exo-earths with Near-infrared and optical Echelle Spectrographs) is a next generation instrument being built for the 3.5-m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory by a consortium…

Completed in May 2008, the ANTARES neutrino telescope is located in the Mediterranean Sea, 40 km off the coast of Toulon, at a depth of about 2500 m. Consisting of 12 detector lines housing nearly 900 optical modules, the ANTARES telescope…

Transmission spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets is a potential tool for habitability screening. Transiting planets are present-day "Rosetta Stones" for understanding extrasolar planets because they offer the possibility to characterize…

The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will gather unprecedented spectro-photometric data on galaxies out to the highest redshifts. It is therefore crucial to identify the spectro-photometric diagnostics within reach of NGST, which will…

We obtained J-, H- and JH-band photometry of known extrasolar planet transiting systems at the 2.1-m Kitt Peak National Observatory Telescope using the FLAMINGOS infrared camera between October 2008 and October 2011. From the derived…

The KELT project was originally designed as a small-aperture, wide-field photometric survey that would be optimally sensitive to planets transiting bright (V~8-10) stars. This magnitude range corresponded to the gap between the faint…

The NEAT (Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope) mission is a proposition submitted to ESA for its 2010 call for M-size mission. The main scientific goal is to detect and characterize planetary systems in an exhaustive way down to 1 Earth mass…

We discuss preliminary results from our first search campaign for transiting planets performed using Sleuth, an automated 10 cm telescope with a 6 degree square field of view. We monitored a field in Hercules for 40 clear nights between UT…

The future extremely large telescopes (ELTs) are expected to be powerful tools to probe the atmospheres of extrasolar planets using high-dispersion spectroscopy, with the potential to detect molecular oxygen in Earth-like planets transiting…