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Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique method to directly map the dark matter in the universe and measure cosmological parameters. Current weak lensing surveys are limited by the atmospheric seeing from the ground and by the small…
Recent advancements in low-cost astronomical equipment, including high-quality medium-aperture telescopes and low-noise CMOS detectors, have made the deployment of large optical telescope arrays both financially feasible and scientifically…
Robotic telescopes present the opportunity for the sparse temporal placement of observations when period searching. We address the best way to place a limited number of observations to cover the dynamic range of frequencies required by an…
This paper describes a programme to map large-scale cosmic structures on the largest possible scales by using the Five hundred metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) to make a 21 cm (red-shifted) intensity map of the sky for the range…
Redshift space distortion (RSD) is a powerful way of measuring the growth of structure and testing General Relativity, but it is limited by cosmic variance and the degeneracy between galaxy bias b and the growth rate factor f. The…
Many scientific deliverables of the next generation low frequency radio telescopes require high dynamic range imaging. Next generation telescopes under construction indeed promise at least a ten-fold increase in the sensitivity compared…
Astronomical instruments make intensity measurements; any precise astronomical experiment ought to involve modeling those measurements. People make catalogues, but because a catalogue requires hard decisions about calibration and detection,…
Weak lensing of galaxies by large scale structure can potentially measure cosmological quantities as accurately as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). However, the relation between observables and fundamental parameters is more complex…
The High Resolution Camera (HRCam) speckle imager at the 4.1 m Southern Astrophysical Research telescope is a highly productive instrument that has accumulated about 40K observations to date. Its performance (detected flux, level of the…
Motivated by the recognition that variation in the optical transmission of the atmosphere is probably the main limitation to the precision of ground-based CCD measurements of celestial fluxes, we review the physical processes that attenuate…
We present a novel approach to implement compressive sensing in laser scanning microscopes (LSM), specifically in image scanning microscopy (ISM), using a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array detector. Our method addresses two…
Future weak lensing surveys potentially hold the highest statistical power for constraining cosmological parameters compared to other cosmological probes. The statistical power of a weak lensing survey is determined by the sky coverage, the…
The beginning of the 21st century marked the "modern era of galaxy surveys" in astronomy. Rapid innovation in observing technology, combined with the base built by galaxy catalogs and atlases dating back centuries, sparked an explosion of…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Optical polarimetry provides information on the geometry of the emitting region, the magnetic field configuration and the properties of dust in astrophysical sources. Current state-of-the-art instruments typically have a small field of view…
The digital revolution is transforming astronomy from a data-starved to a data-submerged science. Instruments such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and the Square Kilometer Array…
One of the well-known problems of producing instruments for Extremely Large Telescopes is that their size (and hence cost) scales rapidly with telescope aperture. To try to break this relation alternative new technologies have been…
Simple formulae are often used to estimate the sensitivity of coded mask X-ray or gamma-ray telescopes, but these are strictly only applicable if a number of basic assumptions are met. Complications arise, for example, if a grid structure…
Survey observations of the three-dimensional locations of galaxies are a powerful approach to measure the distribution of matter in the universe, which can be used to learn about the nature of dark energy, physics of inflation, neutrino…
New mass-produced, wide-field, small-aperture telescopes have the potential to revolutionize ground-based astronomy by greatly reducing the cost of collecting area. In this paper, we introduce a new class of large telescope based on these…