Related papers: The Locus Algorithm I: A technique for identifying…
We present the software system developed to implement the Locus Algorithm, a novel algorithm designed to maximise the performance of differential photometry systems by optimising the number and quality of reference stars in the Field of…
This paper presents a catalogue of optimised pointings for differential photometry of 23,779 quasars extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Catalogue and a score for each indicating the quality of the Field of View (FoV)…
This paper discusses the hardware and software components of the Grid Computing system used to implement the Locus Algorithm to identify optimum pointings for differential photometry of 61,662,376 stars and 23,799 quasars. The scale of the…
We present a generic algorithm for performing astronomical image registration and pointing refinement. The method is based on matching the positions and fluxes of available point sources in image overlap regions. This information is used to…
Having a need to perform differential photometry for tens of thousands stars in a several square degrees field, we developed Astrokit program. The software corrects the star brightness variations caused by variations of atmospheric…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is limited by bright quasi-static speckles in the point spread function (PSF) of the central star. This limitation can be reduced by subtraction of reference PSF images. We have developed an algorithm to…
The design of astronomical hardware operating at the diffraction limit requires optimisation of physical optical simulations of the instrument with respect to desired figures of merit, such as photometric or astrometric precision. System…
This paper present the mathematical fundaments and experimental study of an algorithm used to find the optimal position for the camera lens to obtain a maximum of details. This information can be further applied to a appropriate system to…
A direct approach to studying the galaxy-halo connection is to analyze groups and clusters of galaxies that trace the underlying dark matter halos, emphasizing the importance of identifying galaxy clusters and their associated brightest…
Photon statistics of an optical field can be used for quantum optical sensing in low light level scenarios free of bulky optical components. However, photon-number-resolving detection to unravel the photon statistics is challenging. Here,…
We propose a complete framework for the detection, astrometry, and photometry of faint companions from a sequence of adaptive optics corrected short exposures. The algorithms exploit the difference in statistics between the on-axis and…
Difference imaging is a technique for obtaining precise relative photometry of variable sources in crowded stellar fields and, as such, constitutes a crucial part of the data reduction pipeline in surveys for microlensing events or…
Previous studies determining which astronomical photometry software is best suited for a particular dataset are usually focused on speed, source classification, and/or meeting a sensitivity requirement. For faint objects in particular, the…
The optical observations of wide fields of view encounter the problem of selection of best exposure time. As there are usually plenty of objects observed simultaneously, the quality of photometry of the brightest ones is always better than…
Focus accuracy affects the quality of the astronomical observations. Auto-focusing is necessary for imaging systems designed for astronomical observations. The automatic focus system searches for the best focus position by using a proposed…
Building on previous Bayesian approaches, we introduce a novel formulation of probabilistic cross-identification, where detections are directly associated to (hypothesized) astronomical objects in a globally optimal way. We show that this…
We present a new algorithm to search for distant clusters of galaxies on catalogues deriving from imaging data, as those of the ESO Imaging Survey. Our algorithm is a matched filter one, similar to that adopted by Postman et al. (1996),…
The observing strategy of a galaxy survey influences the degree to which its resulting data can be used to accomplish any science goal. LSST is thus seeking metrics of observing strategies for multiple science cases in order to optimally…
High quality, repeatable point-spread functions are important for science cases like direct exoplanet imaging, high-precision astrometry, and high-resolution spectroscopy of exoplanets. For such demanding applications, the initial on-sky…
With the dramatic rise in high-quality galaxy data expected from Euclid and Vera C. Rubin Observatory, there will be increasing demand for fast high-precision methods for measuring galaxy fluxes. These will be essential for inferring the…