Related papers: An improved solution to geometric distortion using…
A new analysis of CCD-based BVRI broad-band photometry for the globular cluster NGC2419 is presented, based on 340 CCD images either donated by colleagues or retrieved from public archives. The calibrated results have been made available…
The Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey (BASS) is an imaging survey and uses the 2.3 m Bok telescope at Kitt Peak. In order to tap the astrometric potential of the Bok telescope and improve the astrometry of BASS, a distortion solution for the Bok…
We present significantly improved proper motion measurements of the Milky Way's central stellar cluster. These improvements are made possible by refining our astrometric reference frame with a new geometric optical distortion model for the…
The tilt, rotation, or offset of each CCD with respect to the focal plane, as well as the distortion of the focal plane itself, cause shape distortions to the observed objects, an effect typically known as field distortion (FD). We point…
We employ differential astrometric methods to establish a small field reference frame stable at the micro-arcsecond ($\mu$as) level on short timescales using high-cadence simulated observations taken by Gaia in February 2017 of a bright…
We present an improved geometric-distortion solution for the Hubble Space Telescope UVIS channel of Wide Field Camera 3 for ten broad-band filters. The solution is made up of three parts: (1) a 3rd-order polynomial to deal with the general…
Background. Astrometry at or below the micro-arcsec level with an imaging telescope assumes that the uncertainty on the location of an unresolved source can be an arbitrarily small fraction of the detector pixel, given a sufficient photon…
We propose a new strategy for obtaining enhanced resolution (FWHM = 0.12 arcsec) deep optical images over a wide field of view. As is well known, this type of image quality can be obtained in principle simply by fast guiding on a small (D =…
We observed the young open cluster NGC 2301 for 14 nights in Feb. 2004 using the orthogonal transfer CCD camera (OPTIC). We used PSF shaping techniques ("square stars") during the observations allowing a larger dynamic range (4.5…
In preparation to make the most of our own planned James Webb Space Telescope investigations, we take advantage of publicly available calibration and early-science observations to independently derive and test a geometric-distortion…
High precision astrometry requires an accurate geometric distortion solution. In this work, we present an average correction for the Blue Camera of the Large Binocular Telescope which enables a relative astrometric precision of ~15 mas for…
This paper is the first of a series of papers in which we will apply the methods we have developed for high-precision astrometry (and photometry) with the Hubble Space Telescope to the case of wide-field ground-based images. In particular,…
Wide field planetary camera 2 (WFPC2) exposures are already some 20 years older than Gaia epoch observations, or future JWST observations. As such, they offer an unprecedented time baseline for high-precision proper-motion studies, provided…
We characterize the astrometric distortion at the edges of thick, fully-depleted CCDs in the lab using a bench-top simulation of LSST observing. By illuminating an array of forty thousand pinholes (30mu m diameter) at the object plane of a…
The off-axis location of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is the chief (but not sole) cause of strong geometric distortion in all detectors: the Wide Field Camera (WFC), High Resolution Camera (HRC), and Solar Blind Camera (SBC).…
An optimal maximum-likelihood technique for computing point-source image centroids from many, slightly offset, CCD frames is presented. The method is especially useful for measuring stellar proper motions from data taken with the Wide Field…
The commonly used radial distortion model for camera calibration is in fact an assumption or a restriction. In practice, camera distortion could happen in a general geometrical manner that is not limited to the radial sense. This paper…
We present a new method of interpolation for the pixel brightness estimation in astronomical images. Our new method is simple and easily implementable. We show the comparison of this method with the widely used linear interpolation and…
Image distortion due to weak gravitational lensing is examined using a non-perturbative method of integrating the geodesic deviation and optical scalar equations along the null geodesics connecting the observer to a distant source. The…
Images obtained by drift-scanning with a stationary telescope are affected by the declination-dependent curvature of star trails. The image displacement to curvature and drift rate variation increases with the angular field of view and can…