Related papers: Operations in the era of large distributed telesco…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an international initiative to build the next generation ground-based very-high-energy gamma-ray observatory. Full sky coverage will be assured by two arrays, one located on each of the northern and…
Modern radio telescopes will daily generate data sets on the scale of exabytes for systems like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Massive data sets are a source of unknown and rare astrophysical phenomena that lead to discoveries.…
Next generation radio observatories such as the MWA, LWA, LOFAR, CARMA and SKA provide a number of challenges for interferometric data analysis. These challenges include heterogeneous arrays, direction-dependent instrumental gain, and…
Astrophotonics is a burgeoning field that lies at the interface of photonics and modern astronomical instrumentation. Here we provide a pedagogical review of basic photonic functions that enable modern instruments, and give an overview of…
The emergence of time-domain multi-messenger (astro)physics requires for new, improved ways of interchanging scheduling information, in order to allow more efficient collaborations between the various teams. Currently space- and…
Over the next few years the new radio telescopes, such as the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) will greatly enhance our knowledge of the active history of the Universe. Large-area surveys with these new telescopes will no longer be dominated by…
Today, professional instrumentation is dominated by heavily oversubscribed telescopes which focus mainly on a limited number of "fashionable" research topics. As a result, time acquisition for massive star research, including extended…
The fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics are technology limited, where the advent and application of new technologies to astronomy usher in a flood of discoveries altering our understanding of the Universe (e.g., recent cases include LIGO…
Modern ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has developed a vision where the "computer" is no longer associated with the concept of a single device or a network of devices, but rather the entirety of situated services originating…
Energy consumption and hardware cost of signal digitization together with the management of the resulting data volume form serious issues for high-rate measurement systems with multiple sensors. Switching to binary sensing front-ends…
The International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) is a pan-European radio interferometer with baselines up to 2,000 km. This provides sub-arcsecond resolution at frequencies of <200 MHz. Since starting science operations in 2012, the ILT has carried…
I review the early development of Aperture Arrays and their role in radio astronomy. The demise of this technology at the end of the 1960's, and the reasons for the rise of parabolic dishes is also considered. The parallels with the…
Distributed calibration based on consensus optimization is a computationally efficient method to calibrate large radio interferometers such as LOFAR and SKA. Calibrating along multiple directions in the sky and removing the bright…
Time-domain astronomy (TDA) is facing a paradigm shift caused by the exponential growth of the sample size, data complexity and data generation rates of new astronomical sky surveys. For example, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST),…
Telescope arrays are receiving increasing attention due to their promise of higher resource utilization, greater sky survey area, and higher frequency of full space-time monitoring than single telescopes. Compared with the ordinary…
The SKA will be capable of producing a stream of science data products that are Exa-scale in terms of their storage and processing requirements. This Google-scale enterprise is attracting considerable international interest and excitement…
Advances in astronomy are often enabled by adoption of new technology. In some instances this is where the technology has been invented specifically for astronomy, but more usually it is adopted from another scientific or industrial area of…
Operation of the US Virtual Astronomical Observatory shares some issues with modern physical observatories, e.g., intimidating data volumes and rapid technological change, and must also address unique concerns like the lack of direct…
This invited white paper, submitted to the National Science Foundation in January of 2020, discusses the current challenges faced by the United States astronomical instrumentation community in the era of extremely large telescopes. Some…
As human space exploration evolves toward longer voyages farther from our home planet, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) becomes increasingly important. Haptic teleoperations are one of the technologies by which such activities can be…